I love chocolate – any shape form, or fashion. September 13th is International Chocolate Day. The chocolate industry is worth over $100 billion dollars. Research shows that chocolate cravings have been proved to be unable to satisfy by anything else but chocolate itself. Twice as many women crave chocolate than men. When you want chocolate, nothing else will do.
*Aztecs used cacao seeds as a form of currency.
*Joseph Fry invented the first chocolate bar in 1847.
*Milky Way bars weren’t named for the galaxy; they are named after the malted milk shakes the bars were supposed to taste like.
*Chocolate milk is an effective post-workout recovery drink.
*In 1930, Ruth Wakefield ran out of chocolate while making chocolate cookies. She chopped the chocolate she had into pieces and mixed it in with regular dough – the first chocolate chip cookie. She sold her idea to Nestle in return for a lifetime of chocolate.
*The biggest chocolate sculpture ever made was a 10-foot high Easter egg that weighed 4,484 pounds in Melbourne, Australia.
*Blue packaged chocolates do not sell in China. The people of China associate the color blue with death.
*In the original Psycho film, the blood in the famous shower scene was actually chocolate syrup.
*Americans eat 50% of the world’s chocolate.
*Red M & Ms were once the most popular color. In the 1970s they were replaced with orange because a medical study made stated that red food dye was related to cancer.
*Studies show that eating chocolate gets your heart pounding more than kissing.
*More than 7 billion chocolate chips are eaten annually.
*It takes 400 cocoa beans to make a pound of chocolate.
*On average, each cacao tree produces enough fruit each year to make 1-3 pounds of chocolate.
I have tried a lot of different chocolates. I never met one I didn’t like. But my all-time favorite is just a plain old Hershey Bar divided into the rectangles. I pop them off one by one until I finish it off. These are two of my favorite recipes using Hershey Bars. I hope you will give them a try. Thanks for reading.
HERSHEY BAR CAKE
9 (1.55 oz.) Hershey candy bars
1 ½ cups Hershey chocolate syrup
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
2 ½ cups flour
¼ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
2 tsp. vanilla
Preheat oven to 350 degrees; grease and flour a Bundt cake pan. Place chocolate syrup and candy bars in a saucepan; cook over low heat until melted and set aside to cool. In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients – flour, salt, and baking soda; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy; add eggs and mix well. Add flour mixture to the bowl alternating with buttermilk; stir in chocolate mixture and vanilla. Pour batter into prepared cake pan and bake for one hour or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 10 minutes; remove cake from pan and cool completely on a wire rack.
If desired, you may add this chocolate ganache to drizzle over the top:
¾ cup chocolate chips
¼ cup heavy cream
Place chips and cream in microwave bowl and cook for 30 seconds; stir until smooth and pour over cake.
HERSHEY
BAR PIE
7 almond Hershey bars
20 large marshmallows
½ cup milk
½ pint whipping cream
Cool Whip (8 oz.)
Graham cracker crust
Melt candy bars, milk and marshmallows over low heat; set aside and let cool slightly. Whip cream until it forms a peak; fold in chocolate mixture. Spoon into crust and refrigerate until firm. When mixture is firm, spread Cool Whip on the top.
