have recently made a white chocolate shell to go around the bottom of my cupcake and a milk chocolate (both proper cooking chocolate) - we don't really have the likes of candy melts readily available in the UK and where they do sell them they are very expensive and so am wanting to experiment with different chocolates for the base.

Does anyone know if its possible to use the likes of cadburys or galaxy chocolate for the base? I melt the chocolate 30 secs at a time in the microwave and so it shouldn't melt too quick or burn.

Also how do people package their giant cupcakes - i'm really struggling finding a box for it to fit. I today bought some selophane to wrap around it and put ribbon on it etc but it doesn't really work as it touches the cake - help !!

thanks in advance

You can use an chocolate, it's best if you temper real chocolate but that can be a difficult process.

I put mine on a board in cake box and put the box extenders in the corners.

bump

have thought about using the extenders but i'm not sure if they're as simple to get over here in the UK as it might be in the US.

I was thinking of just getting the lids of the boxes putting it in and wrapping the selophane around it all so it doesn't touch the frosting but again can't find anywhere that just sells lids.

Wonder if i could make them myself?!

You can get the extenders at any cake shop in the UK or any online company.

You probably won't be able to buy just the lids anywhere.

You can make your own extenders using cereal boxes. Just cut the box so that you have 4 strips. You want the folds of the cereal box as the centre of the strip so that they easily fit in the corners of the boxes. You can see how I did it in this picture http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1916238/radley-handbag?sub=1916240

Also for the candy melts, you can get Wilton ones from Hobbycraft. I used the Wilton ones for all 3 of my giant cupcakes.

I gave 9 of these big boys away during the holidays and placed about 2-3 T of melted chocolate on a cake board to secure the chocolate cupcake base so it didn't move. This worked very well, then I wrapped in celophane and tied on top with a beautiful bow - the whole package was quite impressive.

I do buy the extenders when Im ordering from Almond art but before that I used to tape wooden skewers into the corners of my cake box and cut off to the height I needed.

Candy melts are easy to get in the uk from Id think all of the online cake shops

thanks guys - you will have to excuse my ignorance on one or two things i'm a total novice at all things cake and am still learning the ropes - i'm so sorry

Thats a good idea using cereal boxes - that will do great for now.

Thanks again