With no electricity for a week after Hurricane Sandy, I felt like time was stolen away from me. It completely threw me off. What? It’s November already? V didn’t even trick or treat yet! It was only two days ago that I realized Diwali is only days away! I still have presents to buy and cookies to make. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, hoping that it all gets done in time. 
I didn’t think I had the time to create something new for Diwali this year. I’m sticking with my Rangoli cookies as my main contribution to family and friends. But yesterday, I had an idea and could not resist trying out a small batch. Why not make some chocolate bark for this holiday? It’s fast and easy and it can have an Indian twist.
So I came up with a good mix to put into my bark. I used vanilla bean Godiva chocolate bars that I mixed with rose essence and saffron strands. It’s generously sprinkled with pistachios, sliced almonds, and roughly crushed cardamom seeds. To top it off, I cut the sweetness with a bit of of Merlot salt. I love the color of this salt. It makes everything so pretty.
I was so pleased with this new concoction. It reminded me a lot of paper halwa. Maybe next year will finally be the year where I plan more in advance so I have time to make more! It would be great for giving out in place of the standard box of mixed mithai. Don’t you think?
WHITE CHOCOLATE DIWALI BARK
yield: about 16 pieces
Ingredients
7 oz white chocolate (mine was vanilla bean flavored)
1/4 tsp rose essence *
pinch of saffron
3 Tbs sliced almonds
2 Tbs chopped pistachios
1/4 tsp roughly crushed cardamom seeds.
Merlot salt or sea salt
Method:
Melt all but a few pieces of the chocolate over a double boiler until it’s just melted. If you have a thermometer, it should be 113°F. Remove it from the heat and continuously stir to cool down as you add the remaining pieces of chocolate, rose essence, and saffron. Cool it down to 80°F and then briefly reheat back to 83°F. (This heating/cooling process tempers the chocolate so the finished bark is shiny and hard.) Stir in the nuts and cardamom. Pour and spread the mixture over a parchment covered baking sheet to a 1/4 inch thickness. Sprinkle with salt. Let it cool until hardened and cut into pieces. If you must refrigerate for it to harden then wait until it comes back to room temperature to cut it so that the pieces are neat and don’t fracture.
* Please note, rose esssence is not the same as rose water.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Just found you on FoodBlogs.com. Love the title of your blog ~ DessArts! Definitely want to make this recipe. Only ingredient I’m not sure about finding is rose essence. What does this do to the taste? If I can’t find it, do you think I could just leave it out or could you suggest a substitute?
Kathleen Richardson recently posted..Gruyére-Stuffed Baked Potatoes
Thanks Kathleen. Rose essence adds a very strong flavor. It affects the product like any other extract would. You can usually find it at an Indian Grocery store where they keep all the other extracts. Rose water is a less concentrated form and may be easier to find. I’ve read that you need to use 5X more if using rose water but I have not tried it here and I’m not sure what it would do to the chocolate. You can always leave it out and just use vanilla extract but it does give it a different taste. It’s always fun to experiment with flavor though and I’d love to here how it goes!
Tried this a few days ago… so yummy and so easy to make! I’m not much of a chocolate lover, but I love this!
This looks so delicious and pretty! I stumbled upon your blog while looking for chocolate and pink peppercorn recipes (in your pink peppercorn post, i noticed that i bought the same exact bottle even though you can only see the bottom corner of it in the picture:)
anyway, I am going to try a pink peppercorn and dark chocolate bark as inspired by this post. thanks for sharing!
Pink Peppercorn and Paprika recently posted..Crepes a la Chocolate Peanut Butter