hey Wandootie: your best, easiest bet is to start with clean, DRY berries (getting water in the melted chocolate coating can be disastrous). for dipping, use a good DARK coating chocolate (like merkins), melt at 50% power for about 2 minutes in a glass dish in the microwave, and stir to melt completely (reheat for 10 second intervals as needed). dip the berry, shake and tap off the excess, and place it on a wax or parchment paper-lined tray, stick in the fridge for a few mintues, and you will have nice, hard chocolate shells on your strawberries. a nice touch is to melt some white chocolate coating and put in a paper cone, and drizzle lines on the dark chocolate (nice contrast). if you're feeling really frisky, you can dip berries first in white chocolate, let set, and then dip in dark on an angle, let set, and then do tiny dark dots and you end up with "tuxedo" strawberries, perfect for a groom's cake. ![]()
wilton makes a product called "candy melts" which should work just fine. you may also be able to find "chocolate buttons" at your local bulk foods store, which are coating or compound chocolate -- with all of these products, the darker the colour the better the taste, generally. keep in mind that most of these products do not completely melt on their own, but rather need to be stirred to lose their button shape, so don't be fooled into thinking they just need more cooking time, which could in fact burn them.
the best coating chocolate in the world is of course Callebaut Dark Chocorobe, sold in slabs, which is not commercially available except by mail order
, and is rather expensive, but SO worth it!
you can make your own "coating" chocolate by using about a tablespoon of shortening to 10 or so ounces of chocolate (like chips), but i find that this approach does not give you a smooth, shiny, hard finish, even upon refrigeration.
for the strawberries for my daughters wedding.....my friend used chocolate that is sold at walmart in the baking section....its comes in dark and white chocolate........i think its referred to as almond bark...it sorta looks like it was molded in the old ice trays.........it was very good.....and boy did they go fast!!!! and as she said if she could do it anybody could do it because she had never done anything like that before and did it as a favor for me!! good luck...Donna 
I usually use the Wilton candy melts. They work great and you can find them at Wal-Mart. One more suggestion I would like to add is to dip the strawberries th eday that you want to use them. Also, place them on the cake at the last possible moment that you can. They tend to weep and can get juices all over the cake. They are so beautiful and yummy, but they can be tempermental little things.
When I can't get my hands of real "quality"chocolate, I use regular Nestles semi-sweet morsels for dipping strawberries. It works GREAT! And I get more compliments than when I use the more expensive stuff!!
Ever thought about Glaceed Fruit? What you do is whip up a batch of boiled sugar. Then just dip the strawberries into it. Best if they have the stems on them though or you can use skewers to dip them makes them look like they are glass covered so I have heard never tried it but I want to one day.
for the strawberries for my daughters wedding.....my friend used chocolate that is sold at walmart in the baking section....its comes in dark and white chocolate........i think its referred to as almond bark...it sorta looks like it was molded in the old ice trays.........it was very good.....and boy did they go fast!!!! and as she said if she could do it anybody could do it because she had never done anything like that before and did it as a favor for me!! good luck...Donna

I tried that to, but I have a hard time to get it liquid enough. Any ideas?
if your chocolate needs a little help you can add a little ..note..LITTLE bit of crisco as you melt your coating..since you're not going to use tempered chocolates.
The candy melts are nice since they come in fun colors.
I also suggest that as you bring them up from being dipped..you vibrate the berry to eliminate that "foot" that it forms as it cools.
I never put my dipped strawberries in the fridge, they weep when you sit them out, the best thing to do is to do them late that night or early the morning you need them.
HTH
Esther....since it was my friend that used it i can't say for sure about the liquid part.....i do remember that she said she didn't realized that it was melted.......until she stirred it.....(she kept nuking it trying to get it to melt!!
)......and then she decided to stir it and realized it was melted.....sorry i can't be of more help.....but i will tell you that they came out great.....you can see a pic of them in my photos.....it was on the grooms cake......Donna 
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