I love little dots on cakes! They look so pretty on a cake. My question is how do you get them perfectly spaced?? I have heard of using a pizza pan with holes for the top of the cake, but what about the sides of the cake? Thanks in advance!

Eyeball it.

hi, all cake suppliers have these mats that help you do this. earlene moore has them on her site. And yes, eyeball it , if you can visualize that good. lol! i can,t sometimes. i have the mats i am talking about. hth

I use the small earlene's impression mats for mine. They are not very expensive.
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1866296.html

I saw Buddy do dots on one of his shows. He started on the bottom row, spaced the dots where he wanted them (basically eyeballed it). Then for the next rows, he placed the dots in between the ones on the lower row.

I use the Wilton divider mat and a ruler.

i love the perfectly spaced dots too but i have yet to try it! i have the wilton mat (somewhere). but what about vertically? i was thinking i could evenly tape toothpicks to a note card and make impressions on where they should go all around the cake. does that make sense? anyone else have a suggestion on how to space them evenly vertically?

one of those compasses you use in school?

I eyeball it or if they have to be in a line, I take a quilting tape measure and wrap it around the cake and secure it with a toothpick. Then take another toothpick and make your dots lightly. Remove tape measure and pipe your dots over the pin pricks. Totally easy.

I get my son to do it. He has a degree in Digital Media Design, so kerning is his "thing." I just cannot be that precise. I don't have it in me. LOL

I'm not good at eyeballing yet, so I use the wilton cake dividing circle to guide me.

Seriously, a ruler.

Hold it vertically and line it up by the Dividing mat markings.

What wilton mat?

Just get the impression mat. It is very cheap & your results will be perfect. No headache!

eye-balling it with a little measuring works fine with me :Y I did a little cake here, it's 10cm I think. I started with the bottom line of dots, then I measured where the next line of dots should be and I made a tiny hole with a needle where the dot should be. I did measure every dot, but like every 5 dots or so, so I'd know I didn't go to far up or down

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1793339

With the mat, doesn't the pattern get stretched out when you place it around your cake? I cannot imagine that you can get a very straight pattern with the mat...

With earlene's mats, I wait until cake is iced, either with fondant or buttercream, and just press against the side of the cake with the mat. There is no distortion with that. I have been fortunate the times I have used the 1-inch patterned mats that it even matched perfectly on the back side of the cake. No complaints from me. I like it to be as simple as I can get it.

Impression mats work he best and they have different dots spaced mats.

In reference to tipsytaartje, I have never worked with sponge cake, but I would not be afraid to try it on any cake I make.

[quote="Normita"]What wilton mat?[/quote]

This http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=3E30D66E-475A-BAC0-57C5D7D262D8EE2D&killnav=1

Eyeballing it isn't that hard. Like cutting a pie.

Start at one side on the bottom. Then put a dot on the bottom opposite side(North and South). After that, place the East and West dots by splitting the difference. Then fill in by always splitting the leftover space.

Work your way up the cake with dots the same way. A ruler can be helpful to get the vertical spacing right for the second, third, etc. rows. However, you only need to measure two or three on each row to get the height right for the rest.

Of course, for a perfect wedding cake, you can get right in there with the ruler for each dot.

I found this to be helpful:

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-decorate-pink-flowery-wedding-cake-365631/

You can also cut a strip of baking paper/parchment the height and circumference of your cake. Draw the points on the paper as you would like them on the cake. You can also make sure your points will be evenly spaced so you don't end up with a "back" to your cake. Wrap the paper around the cake and hold the ends with sellotape, use a scriber/needle to make holes through the paper into the cake, remove paper, and pipe your dots over the top. You can keep the paper for future cakes too, to save you doing the drawing all over again.