Valentine Day's Special : Orange Zest + Wine Chocolate layered on Valentine Red Coconut. - Vegan

I love colors. I love oranges (even my perfume is orange). I love wine. And I also like dark chocolates.  Lots of people like milk chocolates but I can never bring myself to eat them. High-taste is a one way street after all :).

Anyways  I wanted to make dark chocolate with oranges ala lindt style but with no sugar and no apparent calories.

This recipe of mine is inspired from Richa's cool blog   - do check out she has some really awesome valentine day's ideas: http://www.veganricha.com/2013/02/zesty-pink-coconut-chocolate-bites.html 
I really love her recipes - her vegan pasta is house favorite.

My adaptation of her recipe is here :
1) Chocolate Layer:  I used my simple 5 minute recipe http://aratikadav456.blogspot.in/2013/02/date-chocolate-truffles-vegan.html. Except that I added lots of orange zest to it.
(orange zest is grated orange peel).
Recipe of chocolate in Brief:
Ingredients - 
- Dates (15),
- chocolate powder (2 table spoons, I use cadbury choc powder),
- wine (optional),
- orange zest (again optional but I won't have it any other way:)),
- coconut oil

a) In a mixie run dates, orange zest with chocolate powder. Add a little coconut oil and a spoon of wine if it is too dry.
b) Heat the mixture in microwave for 30 secs. If dates not well-done mash them with spoon. Can add a little spoon of wine again if it is too dry - dont let the chocolate be too wet.

2) Red coconut layer:  For the color of the mixture I just ran the beetroot in a mixie  with water and strained the water to get the red color.
Recipe of Valentine Red Coconut in Brief:
Ingredients- 
- 3/4 cup grated coconut (I used fresh, one can use dry coconut too),
- 3-4 spoons of orange zest,
- 1/4th cup oats (ground),
- 2 teaspoons sugar,
 - 1 tiny beetroot.

a)  On a tava (flat pan) - roast coconut so that it is dry. Remove. Roast powdered oats so that they change their color a bit.
b)  Grind beetroot in a mixie with water. Strain the red colored water, add 2 teaspoons of sugar in it for syrup and boil it a bit so that it becomes little viscous.

Coconut mixture and chocolate together.

c) Add b) to a) on the tava in a controlled way so that it is not too wet and take it out in few minutes when the mixture looks cohesive and done.



Put coconut mixture on a butter paper or newspaper and flatten. Put chocolate on top of coconut mixture. You can sprinkle some chocolate powder on top and make it more dark :).

That's it. Cut and decorate with orange zest!!

Oh no! It's that time of the year again.

The recipe is so simple that I had to give it a complicated name to make it sound exclusive. Anyways, happy Valentine's day to anyone who cares :)!