Embossers, Debossers, and Stamps… Oh My!

There are many different types of stamps for fondant. Some create a raised design, some create a depressed design, some do something all together. This article is here to explain the technical differences between them to help you decide what would be best for your own cookie sets!

Embossers

Technically, an embosser is a stamp that creates a raised design on the backing material. In terms of your fondant, that would mean that the key aspects of your design are raised above the background fondant.

For some reason, in the cookie world, these are most often referred to as ‘debossers’.

The stamp itself has a raised edge, with all aspects of the design at different levels below that.

These can be difficult to two-tone due to the lack of barriers between areas requiring different colours. On the other hand, they can look the most impressive (whether two-toned or painted or left in a single colour) because the different levels of the design add a unique complexity that is a real wow-factor for those outside the cookie community.

These have taken off like a rocket in the past few years, but are slowly losing popularity as cookiers are turning toward two-toning instead of painting their designs.

An embosser creates a design that is raised above the backing or base fondant.

Debossers

Technically, a debosser is a stamp that will create a depressed design on the backing material. In terms of your fondant, that would mean that key aspects of your design as stamped down into the fondant.

This is the more traditional design that existed for decades before some of the big names in the cookie industry revolutionised the way we decorate our baked goods.

These don’t really lend themselves to two-toning, as the design is pressed down into the fondant. They are great for designs that are suited to a single colour of fondant. They can also work great as a coloured stamp, where you apply paint or powder to the stamp design itself before pressing down into the fondant (this works the same as using an ink stamp on paper).

For beginner cookiers and kids cookie making sessions, these can absolutely be the easiest to use.

A debosser for fondant stamps the key aspects of the design down into the fondant.

Outline Stamp

I haven’t seen a real ‘term’ for these, so here I am dubbing them the ‘outline stamp’. These are where the outline of the design is stamped down into the fondant, leaving the design ‘raised’ but with a depressed outline.

In terms of the stamp itself, the entire outline is usually at the same hight, or almost the same height, as the edge of the stamp. This means you have a clear edge to scrape away excess fondant if you are two-toning.

The raised outline of the design is usually very thin, so as to differentiate between this and a debosser. The design itself isn’t stamped down into the fondant, just the outline (or aspects of the outline) of the design.

These are the easiest type of stamp to two-tone, as each individual section can be filled with the fondant colour of your choice. Usually the sections of outline correspond to sections of the design that you would expect would be different colours. Note that this cannot always be achieved for all parts of all designs - areas that are too small, for example, will not be suited to having their own outline.

They are making a real resurgence recently, as cookiers are preferring to two-tone over paint.

An outline stamp for fondant stamps the outline of various design sections down into the fondant, creating raised sections.

ALL Little Cookie Jar stamps can be made in any of these styles - simply select which you’d prefer when adding them to your cart!