I did a cake this past weekend and used some impression mats for brick and cobble stone texture on the fondant....I wasn't happy with it. I rolled out my fondant and pressed the mats into the fondant, but then by the time I got the fondant on the cake, the fondant was pretty much smooth again, so I tried pressing the impression mat on the fondant, but I can't press hard enought without squishing the cake....any ideas on how to get impression mats to work properly to achieve the right look???

Thanks to all of those who can offer up some advice on this one!

Sometimes you can put the mat on the fondant, on the cake and go over it with your fondant smoothers and it helps. Kind of hold the cake still on one side as you go over the mat... Depending on the pattern, you can also use a sewing tracing wheel to make the lines deeper...

HTH,
Pat

I had a similar problem in the past. What worked for me was using SMBC and chilling it so it gets nice and hard before putting the fondant on, and also rolling my fondant a tad thicker than normal so that the impression has some "meat" to leave a mark on.

An alternative is to cover your cake in fondant as usual, then cut a piece of fondant the height and length of your cake sides nice and thin. Make the impression on this and carefully place it on the cake. Nick Lodge demonstrates this in some of his videos.

after i use the impression mat on the fondant, i take my wheel, and go over the design. its quick, easy and keeps the design in the fondant!