There's hardly a better match than strawberries and chocolate. Even better, whipping up a batch of chocolate-covered strawberries is fairly easy, if a bit labor- and gear-intensive. That doesn't mean there isn't room to improve your recipe or enough space to ruin a batch on bad technique.
One of the easiest steps to be a bit unfocused on is the strawberry prep work. After all, it's mostly just washing them. The mistake comes from not fully drying them once they're washed, with any water left on them making it harder for the chocolate to stick.
You can get around this by letting them air dry on the counter for about an hour, which also helps avoid another mistake: attempting to cover still-chilled strawberries in chocolate. When you combine the two, wet and cold, you get chocolate that doesn't set right for several reasons. This leaves you with a regular strawberry and flakes of chocolate that melt on your fingers if you try to eat them.
That's hardly romantic. Why strawberries should be dry and at room temperature The point of washing and using room-temp strawberries is to ensure your chocolate holds tight to the berries and maintains a smooth, luxurious sheen and texture. Failing to properly dry the strawberries does two things.
You already know it makes it harder for the chocolate to stick since the water helps it slide off, but more importantly, even a few drops of water on your strawberries can make your chocolate seize. When chocolate seizes, it clumps up and becomes dry.