There are LOTS of ways to use stone techniques on cakes! And the best bit? They’re easy to create!
Stone effects are pretty commonplace in novelty cakes and cake boards, but they’re also incredibly trendy on tiered and wedding cakes, with contemporary concrete and rough-hewn textures making a stylish counterpoint to pretty florals or sculptural wafer paper accents.
The versatility of stone texture fondant
Stone cake textures work particularly well on these cake themes:
- Castles and fantasy (think Harry Potter, magical dragons, princesses and castles!)
- Sculpted animals
- Garden and floral
- Elegant contemporary celebration cakes
- Cakes for men
- Baking, kitchen or food
“This has to be one of my absolute, all-time favourite textures to use on cakes and boards, simply because there are SO many ways to go with it. Once you have learnt a few techniques you can adapt the same skills to reproduce lots of different stones and colourways. The possibilities are endless!” Zoe Burmester.
Zoe takes you through three stone effect techniques that can be used broadly.
How to create a stone-like cake texture
How do I make stone cake textures?
Stone cake textures video tutorial
How to make fondant look like granite
How to make fondant look like concrete
How to make fondant look like rustic stone
How do I make stone cake textures?
There are many ways to recreate stone effects. Use the principles below as your guide to create grey castle walls, rubbly cobblestones, or large flagstones. These mini tutorials all focus on how to recreate these textures with sugarpaste.
Stone cake textures video tutorial
Top tip! Change up the feel of your slabs by altering the size and the level of texture.
How to make fondant look like granite
Most of us have seen marbled sugarpaste but take it on a step and you can produce granite, Italian marble and even terrazzo with the same techniques.
You will need
Equipment
- Rolling pin
- Modelling tools
Edibles
- Base colour sugarpaste – Zoe uses ivory
- Dried out sugarpaste ‘accent pastes’ in colours of your choice
- Layer of confectioner’s glaze (optional)
Method
This is an excellent way to use up odd bits of sugarpaste.
1. Roll out the ‘accent pastes’ and leave for a few hours until dried out.
2. Colour some sugarpaste of your choice for the base colour of the granite.
3. Break up irregular pieces of the dried out sugarpaste and scatter over the base colour.
4. Knead in very lightly (don’t over mix) and then roll out with a pin. The dried sugarpaste will clump and disperse in a way that looks like patterned stone.
5. Finish with a few layers of confectioner’s glaze for a high polished granite look.
How to make fondant look like concrete
The concrete texture is subtle but with some experimentation can be made smooth, rough or even adapted to create slate.
You will need
Equipment
- Rolling pin
- Modelling tools
- Clean toothbrush
- Flat brush
Edibles
- Grey sugarpaste coloured in ombre of greys
- White petal dust
- Food grade alcohol
Method
1. For a smooth matt concrete effect, start by colouring sugarpaste with a few different tones of grey. Break them up and randomly squish them together.
2. Roll, break up into pieces and re-roll, and repeat until the greys have blended to a subtle streak.
3. Optional – cut the sugarpaste into strips to create a horizontal movement ‘look’ (depending on how textured your concrete looks).
4. Mix some white petal dust with alcohol to create a paint and use a clean toothbrush to make light horizontal streaks.
5. Use a flat brush dipped in alcohol to brush over these streaks horizontally so they’re less pronounced.
6. For further texture roll a pin over the paste while wet which will cause the white streaks to dimple slightly. Allow to dry.
How to make fondant look like rustic stone
Paving slabs are a great starting point and very useful for kids’ cakes, novelty cakes and cake boards.
You will need
Equipment
- Foil
- Blade tool (link to modelling tools)
- Soft brush
- Kitchen towel
Edibles
- Base colour sugarpaste – Zoe uses ivory caramel (made using ivory and honey gold gel pastes)
- Petal dusts in colours of your choice (Zoe uses cream, brown and grey and black)
- Edible varnish
Top tip! Scrunched up foil paper is a great way to add a rough, uneven surface.
Method
1. Start with your base colour and roll out. Use scrunched-up foil to create an uneven surface.
2. Use a blade tool to mark out the slabs (big, small, regular or irregular) and round off the corners so the shape looks more organic.
3. Add a blend of petal dusts in the cracks and crevices with a soft brush for definition and to build up tone.
4. Set the dusts by gently steaming the surface or using a light coating of edible varnish.
Top tip! To turn your rustic stone into paving slabs you can use any base colour but remember to start lighter than you need as you’ll be adding colour with dusts later.
Bonus rustic stone effect tutorial!
This technique is all about building up subtle texture and colour to create a realistic stone-like effect with depth.
You will need
Edibles
- 15cm (6in) cake prepared with ganache or buttercream
- 10cm (4in) cake or dummy on a cake card
- Petal dusts: raw amber (Rolkem), olive green, black and brown (PME)
- 760g white sugarpaste
- Edible glue
Equipment
- Texture brush
- Spoolie tool
- Tin foil for creating texture
- Acanthus mould (Squires Kitchen)
- Paintbrush
- Dowels
Method
1. Either use a 10cm (4in) dummy or cake on a 15cm (6in) dowelled cake. Roughly roll out 650g of white fondant, not too thin (almost 1cm) as it needs to be worked into with texture. Cover both the cakes in one go, gently smoothing it with hands.
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2. Scrunch up tin foil and use it to create cracks in the icing. Push it into the icing, stopping before touching the cake inside.
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3. Start with your texture brush to create a stone effect finish.
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4. Use your spoolie brush to add more texture.
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5. Roll out 50g of white sugarpaste into a sausage long enough to go around the base of the 10cm top tier and glue to the cake. Take 60g of white and separate into 6 x 10g. Mould six leaves using the acanthus mould. Create texture using the spoolie brush and texture brush. You can also add cracks using tin foil again.
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6. Colour using black and brown petal dusts for a stone effect.
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7. Glue leaves onto the cake. Dust black and brown onto the icing to create shadows. Using the amber dust, add rust streaks and green around the cracks.
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Now you’ve mastered stone cake textures, learn how to make edible grass for cakes or follow our tutorial on how to make a sugarpaste sunflower for your themed cake. Looking for something completely different? Learn how to make a fault line cake with sprinkles – a showstopper for sure!
