Chocolate Strawberry Hearts

Hiya Folks !

This post is coming a tad bit late as this was a special I made on Valentine’s Day 🙂 . Nearby stores aren’t selling any vegan chocolate brands since a few weeks now ! This really made me crave chocolate more and more 😛 . I had this imagination of a heart shaped chocolate oozing with strawberry as you bite into it. Something Crunchy and chocolatey !  Went to the store and stocked up on all the ingredients a week prior but finally made it on the V-day itself ! It is satisfying to complete something you conceptualize in your head specially when the result closely matches the imagination 😀 . There is always learning as you do it and brings about so many new ideas.

This recipe has three main steps. There is strawberry jam filled chocolate biscuit covered in melted chocolate. So we got to make the biscuit , the strawberry jam , combine the two and then coat it in chocolate. I made the strawberry jam without any sugar and just used chia seeds to get a thickened mixture. The chocolate I used had enough sweetness to it and I dint want to make the whole piece too sweet. You could take a call to add sugar to your jam depending on your taste. This recipe would suffice for 5-6 hearts. Depending on the size of your cookie or the number you desire to make, multiply the contents to make more. Lets get started on the jam first.

Strawberry Chia Jam

1 Cup Chopped Strawberry
1 Tbs Lemon Juice
1 Tbs chia seeds

Steps –

1. Prep the strawberries – chop them into small pieces.
2. Cook the strawberries in a pan for about 5-10 minutes till the fruit starts turning into a syrup. Mash the fruit slightly with the back on a spoon to make a smoother mix. A few lumps are fine!
3. Switch of the heat and add a tbs of lemon juice to the mix and stir.
4. Stir in the chia seeds.
5. Allow to cool a bit then transfer to a jar and refrigerate.

 

Time to move onto chocolate wafers for this recipe. This is a thin chocolate biscuit. We use two of these to sandwich the strawberry jam inside. I kept this real thin as I wanted a sleeker piece at the end. But a thinner wafer might get soggy absorbing liquid from our chia jam. So I’d advise here to do a slightly thicker biscuit.

Chocolate wafers

1/4 Cup Vegetable Oil
1/4 Cup Cane Sugar
1/2 Flax egg (1 flax egg = 1 tbs ground flax + 3 tbs hot water)
1/2 Cup All purpose flour/Maida
1/4 Cup unsweetened Cocoa powder
1/3 tsp Baking powder
Pinch salt

Steps –

1. Make a flax egg and set it aside to allow it to thicken.
2. Whisk together cane sugar and oil. Add half of the thickened flax egg into this and mix.
3. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix them together with a spoon.
4. Add the wet ingredients with the dry and mix with a spoon to get a dough. Use hand to make a uniform dough. Avoid over mixing.
5. Transfer the dough to a parchment paper. Lay another piece of parchment paper on it and roll out the dough into a sheet of thickness 2-3 mm or 1/8 of an inch. Refrigerate this for 1 hour.
6. Preheat oven to 180 C .
7. Using a heart shaped cutter cut out hearts from the cooled dough. Gently place these onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet.
8. Bake for 5-8 minutes till the edges firm up. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack. Once cooled the biscuits are crisp.

 

Assemble the cookie

Now that our jam and biscuit is ready it is time to assemble. Just sandwich a generous helping of jam in-between two heart shaped cookies. Once your jam filled cookies are ready freeze these for an hour. I froze the filled cookies because when we cover them with hot melted chocolate the layers should not slide apart. A longer refrigeration could also do the job if you have the time for it!

Coating with chocolate

250g of Vegan Dark Chocolate

Steps-

1. Melt the chocolate over a double boiler.
2. Place the frozen filled biscuits on a rack with a plate/tray underneath to catch any falling chocolate.
3. Coat one side of the cookies with melted chocolate. (As the cookies are cold from the freezer the chocolate will set quickly. To avoid having a very thick layer of chocolate, use the back of a spoon to spread the chocolate over the edges)
4. As the chocolate almost sets on one side move the cookies onto a plate and keep in fridge for few minutes. (leaving them on rack will make the pieces stick to rack and then they might break as you try to remove them)
5. Repeat the process for the other side of cookie. This time use a spoon to cover the edges of the cookie covering any gaps left over. Before it completely sets and hardens transfer onto a plate wet side up.
6. Once set, fill a piping bag with some melted chocolate and drizzle lines on the hearts.

A pretty, filled with love dessert is ready 🙂

Lets see what the next Valentine’s day inspires me to do. Just earlier today I had an idea which I’ve forgotten now 😛 . Always pen down your ideas!! Always!

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