Dove Chocolate Discoveries

A couple of weeks ago, I was introduced to Dove Chocolate Discoveries. Who knew you could have chocolate parties featuring Dove Chocolate? I'm hosting a party of my own in a couple of weeks and thought I would take the "Cupcake Kit" for a test run. Here's the unopened box - I figured inside was just the mix.

So imagine my surprise when I opened it up and found all of the following: cupcake mix, frosting mix, 3 bars (6 oz, I believe) of milk chocolate, cupcake foil liners, and sprinkles. Most everything you need to make 24 cupcakes. The only things I had to add were eggs, butter, water, and a little bit of milk. Super easy.

Here's a picture of the cupcake batter ready to go. I will say that when I was filling my cupcake liners, I ended up one short (only got 23). And I was surprised with how much less batter I had to use in each one just to get that.

Here are the finished cupcakes. Another cool thing about this kit is how quickly the cupcakes cook. The box says 8-10 minutes. In our oven, I had to add a couple of minutes to that. But still, pretty quick. And the time is even quicker if you do minature cupcakes - will definitely be doing minis next time.

So, while the cupcakes were cooling, it was time to make the frosting. There are two options - buttercream chocolate or cream cheese chocolate. I'm usually a cream cheese frosting kind of gal, but figured I would try out the buttercream recipe this first time around. Again, super simple to whip together - just butter, the frosting mix, the 3 bars of milk chocolate (melted) and 1 tablespoon of milk. Here's a pic of the frosting all ready to go.

Here is a picture of the finished cupcake. I assure you it is a regular size cupcake - it just looks smaller than it really is.

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And that is about the only "crafty" thing I got accomplished today. Spent the rest of the day wrapping presents and upgrading my computer to Win 7.