Hi!
I am making a castle cake for my daughter with fondant/gumpaste towers and have seen some beautiful pictures where they use a cobblestone/brick imprint on the castle and towers. Just wondering if I can get that same effect "on the cheap" without having to buy the imprints. If anyone has ever done this and has some tips to share, I'd sure appreciate it! Any tips on how to make this cake in general would be great too.

THANKS!!!

You can find the cobblestone imprinter at Michaels with Duffs cake supplies or with the sculpey supplies. Check on line, cake decorating supply stores.
Happy Baking and Decorating,
Chef Angie

You could take a paring knife or fondant tool and straigh tedge to freehand the bricks, but that will take painstakingly long, I would just buy the imprint

I just did it last night, since I misplaced my impression mats somehow Just uploaded to my album. Not quite a castle, but you get the idea.

I used fondarific, which makes it easier since it doesn't dry up or crack. If you use mmf would be good too.
I color the fondant to grey, roll it out and cover the cake.
Then I take the modelling tool(?Is that what's it called? It's the pointy end of the Wilton Ball Tool), and use that to go 90 degrees on the fondant surface. I drew some big irregular circles, sometimes make it with pointy edges. Then I add some smaller circles and lines to make smaller looking stones. After it's all done, you may want to go over all the lines again to make sure they are deep enough.
hth

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-699239-waffle.html

Saw some neat ideas for improvising in this thread!

I know this isn't the greatest tip, but when I need something but don't want to spend the money on the "real" tool, I walk through my house and see if I can come up with anything that might work. For instance for this I would probably walk around and find a small plastic basket that just hold odd and ins in it. The ones that have wholes. I know i'm not describing that great but it is a bunch of squares. If you pressed the side of that one the fondant it would imprint it with the squares. They wouldn't be off center like most brick but should do the trick. I hope I helped and didn't confuse you!

Cake Boss (the software company..not Buddy) has a wonderful tutorial also on how to do a castle cake if needed. I bought my impression mat (Duffs) at Michaels.

Couple of ways I've done it. I've used a straight ruler and ruled horizontal lines in the fondant (when on the cake) with a sharp knife and then gone back and free handed in the vertical brick lines.

Otherwise I have also used an empty matchbox, the sleeve that goes over it which is a rectangle brick shape. Time consuming but gives a good imprint and obviosly cheaper than an impression mat.

Not exactly cobblestone, but I used a waffle (yep a waffle like you bake in your waffle iron for breakfast) on the last cake I posted in my gallery. Get your buttercream crusted, and gently press into the cake. It was exactly the effect the bride and groom wanted on this unique cake they ordered.

HTH.

Next time try bubble wrap - I used it for my castle turrets. I spread melted chocolate on the bubble wrap and then allowed it to set in flower formers. It worked great! It would also work as an "impression map" on BC or fondant.

After I made the cake, I saw the imprints by Duff at Michael's Craft Store - they were only $5-6, definitely worth it to me. My castle cake turned out okay, my 4-yr old daughter commented that it didn't look like the picture I printed from here - lol! Those MMF/Gumpaste towers were a chore to make! I ended up using a butter knife (the non-serrated side) to make the cobblestone patterns. Thanks for all the great suggestions!

To Bakingpw: I love your idea - I'll have to experiment with that next time.