For those that dream in chocolate...

So I made a special batch of Chocolate Caramel Cupcakes topped with milk chocolate frosting and centered with a caramel filled Hershey's kiss, exactly a year ago from today for my good friend Scott (who just ordered me my first shipment of cupcake containers - thank you!). They turned out so beautiful i took a photo of them, anticipating that i will be blogging about cupcakes one-day (j/k... but i did take a photo cause they looked so scrumptious). I can't say I LOVE CHOCOLATE like those around me (minus David, my other half, who actually hates chocolate flavored anything), and I don't know why that is, but I do love chocolate cake - a lot. For me chocolate cake must be moist and chocolaty and the icing must not be too sweet - you know, the type of icing you can eat cups of without feeling like well... you ate cups of it.

Cool facts about chocolate:

• 71% of chocolate eaters prefer milk chocolate. (i like dark myself ;)
  
• 40% of women and 15% of men crave chocolate but it is not physically addictive.
• 51% choose a chocolate from a selection box depending on its shape.
• Chocolate makers use 40% of the world's almonds and 20% of the world's peanuts.
• Hershey produces around 23 million kisses a day in a variety of flavors
• The U.S. produces more chocolate than any other country but the Swiss consume the most.
  
• In 1939, Nestle introduced Chocolate Chips.
• Chocolate's melting point is just below your body temperature, so it melts in your mouth.

Also about my first order of cupcake containers: It turns out that the prices in the states are 60 times...yes i repeat 60 times cheaper than the suppliers in Canada. I spent 2 days calling, reseraching online, with over 20 suppliers, both in Canada and the USA before I placed an order. I mean, there is a chance that I missed a key supplier here in Canada but for now, I'm sticking to what my research shows. How unfair is it to us Canadian business owners? My cupcake containers and boxes are going to be shipped to my place in Bellingham. Let's just hope they don't charge me an arm and a leg at the border... regardless though, it's not going to be 60x the price! Entrepreneurship is harder in Canada than the US... proof is bank!