Melted chocolate hardening with a mottled pattern :-(

[Clr2014]

Please help! How do I stop this from happening? Happens to my top hats and when I put the choc on caramel sqs etc.

Also, how do you cut up a tray of chocolate bakes without the top chocolate layer cracking and crumbling?

Tia

I think you have to temper the chocolate to make it shiny.

And mix the chocolate with something else, maybe a bit of cream, to top tray bakes.

It's not tempered.
Chocolate that you buy is already in temper - when you melt it you take it out of temper.
The easiest way I find to do it is to take your amount of chocolate, chop it up and keep 1/3 of it out. Melt the remaining 2/3 gently in the microwave, as soon as it is just melted, stir in the the remaining 1/3 and stir and stir until it's all melted. Adding the unmelted chocolate in 'seeds' the melted chocolate and cools it quickly.