More Chocolate Recipes! Cherry Chocolate Mousse Pie and Death by Chocolate Brownies

I was recently at the H.E. Corley Elementary School Carnival in Irmo, SC doing a booth for ChicksLoveChocolate and met a wonderful lady who worked for Pampered Chef.

She sent me these two great chocolate recipes:

Cherry Chocolate Mousse Pie

Pampered Chef 2004

1 package refrigerated pie crust dough, softened (15oz)

1 egg white,lightly beaten

3/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate morsels, divided

1 package cream cheese, softened (8ounces)

1/4 cup powdered sugar

2 Tablespoons milk

1 container frozen whipped topping,thawed, divided

1 can cherry pie filling (21 ounces) divided

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Unfold one crust onto lightly floured Baker's mat. Roll into a 12inch circle using a floured rolling pin. Place into a deep dish pie plate, pressing dough into bottom and up sides. Unfold remaining crust onto lightly floured surface. Cut 24 hearts using heart shaped cookie cutter. Brush edge of crust with egg white; gently press hearts onto the edge of the crust. Prick bottom and sides with a pastry tool. Bake 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Cool completely.

2. Microwave 1/2 cup of the chocolate morsels, uncovered on high for one minute. Stir at every 20 second intervals until smooth. Chop remaining chocolate. In batter bowl, combine cream cheese and powdered sugar; whisk in milk and melted chocolate until smooth. Fold in chopped chocolate and 2 1/2 cups of the whipped topping until blended.

3. Spoon half of the cherry pie filling over the bottom of the crust, spread with cream cheese mixture. Top with remaining pie filling. Pipe remaining whipped topping around the edge. For chocolate drizzle, microwave 1/4 cup of the remaining chocolate morsels with 1 teaspoon vegetable oil for 30 seconds or until melted; drizzle over pie. Refrigerate 30 minutes.

Yield: 8 servings

Death by Chocolate Brownies

Make the recipe on a package of Ghiradelli brownie mix (eggs, oil, water). With your kitchen spritzer, spray oil in the bottom of the 9 x 9 square baker or for more brownies use the 9 x 13 baker and 2 boxes of Ghiradelli brownie mix. Pour half the prepared brownie mix in the bottom of the pan. Add 2 Symphony Chocolate bars (any good chocolate will do) and pour the other half of the brownie mix over the bars. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

For more information and to order from Pampered Chef:

www.pamperedchef.biz/ruthcornell

 

Wholesaling

Whether you are buying wholesale or you yourself will be selling wholesale, the concept of wholesaling is one you will come across in the chocolate business. I learned from my very favorite people, the state IRS, that you need to give retail liscensing proof to other business owners before you can sell to them. I did not know some of that early on and test marketed a small sample of product with a few business owners without that knowledge. The businesses themselves did not ask though so how was I to know! Just another tip for all startups!!

Organize! No worries!

I have learned that this is key with business. I have been organizing all Chicks Love Chocolate paperwork into files and last night, I organized all my online files also. It is necessary in this world to operate quickly and have all information available at your fingertips for questions etc... I am happy to say that the once this happened, stresses went away immediately!

Suppliers Tip, go Paypal!

Recently, I had a supplier who did not fill the complete order for some soaps. I called them to ask when to expect it and was talked to very rudely by the owner. I was not happy!!! Good thing for paypal though. If you purchase items via paypal, you can dispute charges. Paypal will withdraw the money until the dispute is closed. Remember, when dealing with suppliers to use paypal if possible. It is worth it for instances such as this!!!
www.paypal.com

Come on Girls, Get Along!

Unfortunately, you cannot trust all other woman to help each other out in business. I think because of woman's innate competitiveness (supposedly for reproducing purposes, I have read) with each other that there becomes a need for woman business associations to foster better female relationships. If I was to run a business center, this would be one of my top priorities because it is so unnecessary!!!! Of course, if you are in the same business, there is always going to be an essence of competition but come on, girls, there is no need for competition if you are not in the same line of work and only a win-win if you pair up!!!! I had the recent opportunity to be featured in one of our local women's business magazines called Jolie and because their editor was so helpful, she gets my vote for woman of the year!!! Thanks to her for making my Christmas so special and picking Chicks Love Chocolate as the editor's pick for the Valentines Day edition 2007

Cafepress

If you are unfamiliar with cafepress.com, here is the scoop! This site will let you put any of your artwork on shirts, hats, mugs, etc... and sell it. It is great and easy to work! I use it for all my chocolate designs and it makes my life really easy because you markup your stuff yourself and they make the products, ship it out and send you a check!! Sooooo... easy! I have a little space that I love keeping up with. Yesterday, I changed a banner! Yes, no website experience at all! I just got the HTML code that they provide and placed it on the site where I wanted it! You need to upgrade to premium status if you want to add multiple designs to the same products but it is cheap and for as little as $5 per month! Love that!
www.cafepress.com

FrontPage Tutorial

Yesterday, I learned briefly how to use Front Page from a wonderful woman from Germany who learned Microsoft Front Page on her own and now helps others build their own sites! After realizing that the front page extensions were not installed on the server Blue Host, we were in business! I can now update pages, add images and manage my own site! Front Page is supposedly going to stop being updated this year but I was assured that that was not an issue since Front Page is such a great program already! Girls, if you need to manage your own site instead of paying web developers as much as $75.oo per hour, use Front Page!!!