Easter Dessert #1 - Chocolate

Last year I got the opportunity to host Easter dinner at my house. I had a wonderful time planning, cooking and hosting, so I'd hoped to do it again this year. Due to a series of interesting/odd events this would not be possible, so my mom offered to host it at her house. She put me in charge of bringing salad, desserts, and wine. Since the salad and wine choices are pretty simple I decided to get creative with dessert.

In a recent search through Cooking Light's "Lighten Up" section, I ran across something un-creatively named "Cool, Creamy Chocolate Dessert". I am not a huge cream cheese or "mousse" textured dessert fan, but it got rave reviews from readers so I decided I would make it as my chocolate dessert. It looked fairly simple to make, so I was determined to make it look good too.

Look how pretty the crust is!

The recipe said the cream cheese and sugar mixture should come out "fluffy". I'm not really sure what that means, but I beat it for a good 5 minutes until it became creamy...

The final product - pretty if I do say so myself! The cocoa powder decided to over-pour a little just as I was finishing it up, but nevertheless I'm pretty pleased with the final product.

Will let you know how it tastes after Easter!

Hershey's "Chocolate Bliss" / Birthday Party

I discovered HouseParty.com when I went to a Neutrogena party hosted by a friend. Basically the deal is big companies choose to sponsor parties to get the word of mouth going for a new product. You apply to "host" a party, and if you get selected, they send you all the free swag to do it. I had applied for several of them, but had never gotten picked. However, my love of chocolate must have leapt off the pages and I was chosen to host a party for Hershey's newest line of Chocolates, "Hershey's Bliss".

Since the party had to be done between April 25-27, I decided to make it a birthday party too and invite a bunch of girlfriends over for fun, wine, and of course, chocolate. The box o' goodies arrived about a week before the party and I had the hardest time keeping my fingers out of it (AKA I didn't) - the 3 flavors they sent (dark, milk, and "melt-aways") were all incredible.

Anyhow, the evening finally arrived. It was a good group of friends, just enough to feel really cozy, but not be too crowded. (Thanks to all of you who came - it was so much fun!)

I made dinner, chocolatini's and gift bags...

We tried to play an "I Love the 80's game, but it was REALLY hard! Perhaps we would've been better off with "I love the 90's"... hmmm...

Best of all, it was loads of fun and there was chocolate left over!