Happy Birthday Leigh

The more cakes you bring to work, the more you get solicited to bake!!  This was the case with Leigh's birthday cake.  Toni asked me to make her a "cowboy country" themed cake so the options were endless!  I know Leigh's favorite country singer is Trace Adkins, but I had no idea how to incorporate that into a cake.  Not quite as easy as a Hannah Montana Cake!!  I decided to make it a little bit more simple and stick with a cowboy hat and some paisley finishing to make it look sort of like a bandana.  This is definitely my favorite cake I've made so far.  It came out greater than I could have planned!!  It was a simple lemon cake with plain vanilla icing and it was perfect!!  I decided to go with a pretty teal color and covered the whole cake with a thin layer of that fondant.  Around the bottom I used brown fondant, made two thin strips and twisted them up to look like rope.  I used the same brown color for the hat.  Now this is where things get fancy!!  I stacked 2 Rice Krispies treats and molded them into a hat shape... rounding the corners and making an indent on the top.  I covered that and made a brim and VOILA!!  COWBOY HAT!!  The last step was taking some plain icing and freehanding the paisley decorations on the side.  I'm so glad everyone loved this cake because I was definitely a huge fan (even though I'm not a big country fan... just don't tell Leigh!!)