St. Patricks Day cake

This year for St. Patrick's Day, my work had a potluck. It shifted from being an Irish food potluck to being a "green food" potluck. There were some interesting entries including green fettucini alfredo, green pinwheels (and yes the tortillas, ranch, and ham were ALL GREEN), chili verde, and enchiladas with guacamole. I took the opportunity to make a cake (of course)! Since I had just made red velvet cake last weekend for a wedding, I decided to swap out the food coloring and make green velvet. I adjusted the Martha Stewart recipe for our altitude (around 4500 feet), and the result baked up more evenly, didn't fall in the middle, and worked much better for stacking.

Since a plain cake just wouldn't do, I decided to make a leprechaun's hat. First I leveled, filled, and stacked the 5 layers (it required a double batch of cake batter).

Next I used a serrated knife to carve the general hat shape and crumb coated the whole thing with cream cheese frosting. 

The cake fell a ton on one side, and so I had to cut the bottom off at an angle to make the cake level again. The lesson learned was that with 5 cake layers was too many not to have a cardboard cake round and dowels put in for support... I won't make that mistake again! I covered the whole cake with green marshmallow fondant. It was my first time making fondant, and I was happy with the consistency but even happier with the taste. Overall, it was a hit with the coworker, even though the green velvet was a bit creepy!