Chocolate Casoncelli to a Blood Orange Sauce

Nothing says I love you more than dedicating your time to create something by yourself. And a key to a woman's (and many men's) heart is chocolate. Let's combine this to a dessert for Valentine's Day. The food should be nutritious, stimulating and not give you a bad breath. And look good.

I decided to make chocolate pasta with a walnut filling, sprinkled with white chocolate coating, caramelised peanut kernels to an orange sauce.

The caramelised peanut kernels are optional because it is way too laborious to create them on your own, it is better to just buy them.

Step 1: Ingredients and Equipment:

Ingredients for the pasta:
• 120grams flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon oilve oil
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt


Other ingredients:
• 3 blood oranges
• 2 walnuts
• nutmeg
• ginger
• white chocolate coating
• caramelized peanut kernels


Equipment:
• Hand blender
• Mortar and pestle
• Pasta maker
• Tumbler or cookie cutter
• Fork
• Double boiler
• Kitchen scale

Step 2: Aphrodisiacs:

To spice up the food you can use some natural (legal) aphrodisiacs. Ginger contains substances to boost circulation, enhance bronchi and stimulate the production of saliva. We will use this in the orange sauce. The nutmeg contains myristic acid to lift your mood and will be used in the pasta.

Step 3: Making the Chocolate Pasta

The dough can be prepared a day beforehand. Mix the flour with the cocoa powder, icing sugar and some grated nutmeg. Then create a flour vulcano, add a spoon of olive oil, the salt and crack an egg inside. Whisk the inside and then knead the dough until you have a smooth dough ball. More information and tricks can be found here. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let the dough rest for 30 minutes in the fridge.

Step 4: Cutting the Pasta Dough:

When the dough is ready, create a thin sheet of the pasta dough either with a pasta maker or by a method shown here. Then use a tumbler to cut out circles. If you have to store them, lay them on a plate sprinkled with some flour. The pasta will look like casoncelli.

Step 5: Prepare the Filling:

Crush 2 walnuts in a mortar with a pestle. Then remove the peel and seeds of 2 bloodoranges. Actually you can train the filleting in this step to create perfect fillets for the final product. Use the hand blender to create a blood orange smoothie. Additionally, you should now heat the white chocolate coating in a double boiler, then it is completely melted when you garnish the dessert on a plate.

Step 6:

Now pour the blood orange smoothie through a sifter into a cooking pot. Put the remains back into the mortar and mix with the crushed walnuts. Meanwhile cook the blood orange juice on low heat to reduce it to a sauce. To spice it up, grate some ginger into the sauce.

Step 7: Filling the Casoncelli:

Take the pasta dough discs and coat the border with egg white. Place the filling in the center and fold the pasta into a half-circle. The egg white glues the dough together, but use a fork for the typical decorations of filled pasta like in the picture.

Step 8: Filleting an Orange

Use a big chef knife to slice of the blood orange's top and bottom. Then follow the round shape of the fruit to cut off the peel. Make a cut right next to the skin that sperates the segments of the blood orange. Within the same segment make another cut next to the other skin sperator. The fillet should come out very easily. We need 5 good ones per dessert.

Step 9: Cooking the Pasta

The casoncelli might be coated with some flour, don't be worried about that, it will wash off during the cooking. Bring lightly salted water to a boil and cook the pasta for 2 minutes, drain them.

Step 10: Garnishing the Plate:

Place each casconcelli on a blood orange fillet. Then fill the melted white chocolate coating into the pastry bag for decorations, write the name of your partner, some message, an announcement. Make a heart shape and place the orange sauce in it. If you have 3 more orange fillets, slice one in half and make a heart shape like in picture 4. Then take the caramelized peanut kernels and just drop them randomly on the plate.

Enjoy your meal and have fun!