Sophia Loren's Ricotta Delight with the rose petal preserve

This lovely recipe has been originally created by the incomparable beauty Sophia Loren, and can be found in her book In Cucina con Amore.

My version is adapted from Sophia's recipe.

For the dessert you will need
250g ricotta
2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp rose petal preserve

Dip the top of the serving glass in lemon juice and then in the sugar bowl to get a sugar frosting at the rim. Mix half of your ricotta with the cocoa powder and the sugar. Sophia suggested adding brandy, I didn't add any. Spoon the mixture in the glass. Mix the second half of the ricotta with the rose petal preserve and spoon on top of the cocoa flavoured ricotta.

I have used a Rose Petal Preserve from Forage Fine Foods. I could sing praises about it. If you close your eyes and smell the little bottle, you are immediately taken into an Arabian Nights story. You are in the rose garden. The aroma is beautiful. It also has a very intense sweet rose taste.
This syrup is perfect for delicate desserts. If you want to get hold of one, you'd better hurry. I have an insider information:  very few bottles are left until the roses bloom again!

For the grissini sticks you will need
2 grissini per person (choose plain, you don't want olive or onion flavoured grissini to ruin your dessert)
dark chocolate
dried rose petals (optional)
icing sugar and a few drops of Dr Oetker Bright gel food colour (red to make pink icing)

Mix 2 tbsp of icing sugar with the red gel colour and a lemon juice until the desired consistency is achieved. It should not be too thick or too runny. Taking one breadstick at a time, smear one half of the stick with the pink icing and place standing in a mug or glass for the icing to set.
Melt the dark chocolate in a bowl over a pan with hot water, then dip the grissini, one by one, in the chocolate sauce. At this stage, if you have any dried rose petals at hand (I did, as I dried a lot of rose petals from our garden, they are all organic and pesticide-free), crush them and sprinkle over the chocolate part of the grissini. Again let them stand in a mug until the chocolate is set.

Serve the ricotta mix with the chocolate and pink icing grissini.
For an extra wow-factor, you might want to add some edible gold leaf to your grissini.

This is my entry for a February Romance challenge on What Kate Baked.