Mexican Hat Cake Tutorial

A Mexican hat is a perfect man cake I think. Well, I made two and both were for men lol. In this tutorial I shared how I made both the brims and full details of the body.

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Such a fun cake - Don't you think? Who wouldn't love a Mexican Hat Cake right? I mean so colorful and so vibrant. Kinda makes you feel happy. Just one of those happy cakes!

So I've made two of these in the last couple years and both in summer. I must say the brim can be tricky. with the weather here in Israel. The dome of the had is pretty simple so that's easy peasy.

So I take some progress pictures for you. Both the methods I made. Basically updating this old post with the current new Mexican Hat Cake as well. That way you can see both method.

First some details of my Mexican hat cake

• I use a 7" cake recipe -you can use my cake recipes - Vanilla Cream Cake or Chocolate Pound Cake.
• I baked two cakes - one in a 6" Wilton Ball Pan and the other was a 6" round cake pan.
• Crumb coated the cake as we usually do. No need for any dowels.
• In the first one I kept the dome as is. In the second I just cut two little V wedges to on the top to make that shape (picture below)
• For first I made the brim a day ahead of time. In the second I made brim with the whole cake then let it set.
• I added CMC to the fondant so that the fondant would hold it's shape.
• For the fondant accents - I actually used up all my mini fondant cutters that I could find and use my chevron fondant cutter.

A Tip from me - Mexican hat cake tutorial

If you live in a hot and humid weather like Israel; I would highly recommend you use gumpaste to make the brim. In both cases I use tylose or cmc to make the fondant firm but no matter how much cmc I used the humidity kept the brim soft in summer. Of course if you live in good weather you will have no such problems.

So here is the first collage of the body of the hat

Here you can see - the 6" ball pan and 6" cake has been stacked with buttercream. And, I use a light V wedge on the top to create that Mexican hat shape. If you want you can leave the dome as is. In fact I like the round dome better than this wedged one.

Here is the second collage - Mexican hat cake -the brim method 1

• As you can see below. I rolled some red sugar paste (with tylose added to it).
• I used a large plate as a guide to cut the brim.
• the brim should be at least 3 inches wider on all sides as compared to the hat body.  So here my cake is a 6" round and the brim is 12" round.
• Next I decorated the brim with the cutter I mentioned above.
• Mexican hats are very colorful so I used contrasting colors for the shapes.
• I chose to put the fondant chevron pattern followed by the diamond shares then the tear drop shapes. There is no right or wrong with the pattern because Mexican Hats don't have a specific pattern.
• Once the brim was decorated. I used a 6" cake pan to cut out the center of the cake.
• Then I placed my center hat's body (cake) in place.
• Finally I added paper hand towels to lift the brim above the cake board and let it dry for a couple of hours before I removed the paper hand towels.

Here is the third collage - Mexican hat cake tutorial - the brim method 2

This is the brim I did couple years ago. I think the tutorial is still one I like very much.

• Roll out your gum paste. Using your plate as a guide cut out the brim's circumference first.
• Notice my plate has raised sides to ensure the brim is not flat.
• Next, using your cake circle cut out the center of the brim. This is where your cake will be placed.
• Next, I used a shell tool to create a design for my brim. You can leave it plain or do something else you prefer.
• Before you remove the center circle flip the whole brim on to the pate.
• I wanted the edges to be raised up a bit on my brim so I rolled some aluminum foil into logs and placed them on the outer edges so they would hold up.

How cute are these chilies with the hats?

I just rolled out with some fondant free hand for fun and added two hats.. Not a perfect last minute job but Aadi was excited.

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