I am coating cakes with candy melts, the cakes are in the freezer and I will be doing them tonight. What temp. should the cakes be before I coat them. Thanks.

Room Temperature

Thanks so much.

that's something different...do you just melt and pour over the cake...
or should you use a knife and spread evenly...

No, just pour over the cake. I tried using a knife to help it along and it made marks so I had to do a second coat.

I make ganache with colored candy melts to pour the coating on the cake. It's 1 3/4 cups candy to 1 cup heavy cream. I heat the cream in the microwave until scalded, not boiling. Then pour the hot cream over the candy and stir until melted. Works great!

designsbydelights
Will that ganache recipe work for cake balls?

The candy melts ganache probably does not harden as completely as candy without the cream. I must admit my ignorance re: cake balls, never made them. I love the shiny quality with the ganache.

designbydelights - stupid question, what do you use to measure your candy melts and do you chop them up first?

It may work better to freeze the smaller cakes b/4 you dip them.

Girl, I try not to chop anything!
Usually when I make ganache it's chocolate chips I use so I just use a measuring cup. I also pour the ganache through a strainer before using just in case some didn't melt completely - no lumps on the cake, please! You will find that all chocolate is NOT created equally. Different brands give different results. Also, beware of white chocolate chips to make white ganache. You don't end up with white! It's a horrible yellow color, probably because of cocoa butter in the chips. I had to add the Wilton whitening liquid in desparation at three o'clock in the morning before a wedding (that was after my sweet husband ran to the store for white almond bark. Which, by the way turned out to make a whiter product.) The White Wilton stuff did work (it's primary use is for whitening buttercream, it takes the yellow out of the icing color caused by using butter or margarine. Good luck!