I have to do two cakes with choc. covered strawberries for Thursday and I have several questions....hoping y'all can help me out more than the 5 lines the search engine is providing right now.

I have purchased white chocolate chips and white almond bark for my white dipped ones and dark chocolate chips and chocolate almond bark. Which do you all prefer/recommend the chips or candy coating?

If chips, do you add criso or butter to it?

My main concern, where I pose the biggest question...do they HAVE to be refrigerated? I don't know the exact timing of the event, but the person is picking them up at 8:30 in the morning...and I'm assuming they won't be eating cakes that early. So is it possible for them to NOT be cold or will they get slimy being at room temp and placed on top of vanilla and chocolate buttercream cakes?

Help please! Thanks in advance!

I'd definitely use the bark products. Chips are not the same formulation and are not made to be a coating. I'm sure others will say that they never have a problem using chips, but I personally don't like the result. Refrigerated is best, but you can't control what happens to your cake after it leaves your hands. If the customer picks it up early and doesn't serve till later, then whatever happens is on them. The only option would be to box the strawberries separately, ask the customer to keep them chilled and place them on the cake later themselvs.

thank you so much for your reply Leahs!

Beautiful cake in your avatar saj_stuff!!!

I have used both...chips (ghiradali SP), bakers and chips.....I love the bakers that you just microwave the container then I use a white chocolate to drizzle. But if I had to do a whole slew of strawberries the thing to do would be to do the barks because of the expense. Now as to the refrigeration my strawberries didn't get really bad and they set out for about 5 hours....chill them well before placing them on the cake that morning of them picking it up....I know more work BUT...since they will be chilled they won't go bad quickly


HTH's

Have a great day!!!

Christi

If you use the chips, i would suggest adding a little milk as the chocolate is melting...thats what we do and they turn out great. Otherwise i would use the bark. As for refridgeration, i would refridgerate them and then give them to the customer in a seperate container so they can add them on later...if you refridgerate the strawberries already on the cake and then give them the cake and THEY don't refridgerate it after that(like within an hour), the strawberries may begin to weep....and as i have found out from personal expirence, buttercream and strawberries adn the juices, don't mix well....the strawberry like eats away at the buttercream. so to avoid an mishap...let them add the strawberries on when they are going to serve the cake.

thanks everyone! I did the almond bark and so far so good...however, I should have asked how to get the pretty lines on them. I just took a fork and kind of "artistically" ran the opposing color chocolate across them and they look HORRIBLE! Any tips for that one...for future reference, too late to fix these.

Well if you don't mind the mess lol once I thin the chocolate that will be the drizzle I dip a butter knife in it and sling it on the strawberries (well not really sling but really fast swing it over the strawberries).

I'm glad it all worked out for you

Have a great night!

Christi

Cut tiny hole in corner of zip lock bag. You can put a tip 2 in it, pour in your melted choc. voila, a drizzler.
Hope this helps,
Amy

LOL Amy I've done that also and I don't know why I didn't think about that to post I guess cause its 4 am LOL Thank you

Thanks all for the tips and compliments. Here they are. I am really proud of the cakes...the strawberries have room for improvement...but with all of your help, they'll be better next time! Thanks to you all! Happy Baking!

They are BEAUTIFUL!!! Great job!!!

Your cakes with the strawberries, is beautiful.

The cakes came out WONDERFUL!

I also have problems getting my chocolate to a drizzle consistency. I like to use good chocolate and temper it...maybe I'm not tempering it correctly or should I not bother with that step? I want the surface to set up hard so I haven't tried adding cream or shortening to get that loose consistency needed for proper drizzling.

Leah, as our residence chef, do you have any hints on this? Bo Frieburg's book is great but doesn't really address this.

Thanks for any help

A really great chocolate is Callebaut. And, if you want a shiny look to the finished product, you will need to temper the chocolate. Viking cooking school suggests you do not refrigerate chocolate covered strawberries as that will cause them to weep. HTH

http://www.worldwidechocolate.com/shop_callebaut.html

I almost always use Callebaut and/or Valrhona. I think I have a problem with tempering correctly...it's shiny and everything looks fabulous when dipped into it, but I just can't get it to drizzle.

Both cakes are beautiful and the strawberries looks great also. Nice job.

Both cakes turned out beautiful and the strawberries looks great also. Great job.