Hot Chocolate Pound Cake

2 cups sugar
2 sticks (1 cup) butter, softened
7 eggs, at room temperature
3 cups cake flour
1 cup hot chocolate mix
1 1/2 cups whipping cream
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Combine sugar and butter and beat on medium speed until creamy.  Add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition.  Sift flour and chocolate mix together.  Add half of the dry mixture and 1 cup of the whipping cream.  Beat until smooth.  Add remaining dry mixture and other 1/2 cup of cream.  Pour into a Angel food pan or bundt pan sprayed with non-stick spray.  Bake 1 1/2 to 2 hrs. or until tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool in pan for 5 minutes.  Remove and cool completely before slicing.

I came up with this idea when I found that I had hot white chocolate mix left over from Christmas.  I hate to throw things away so decided to give it a try in a pound cake.  It's great!  The pound cake recipe that I used called for 3 cups of sugar but since the mix is sweet I cut the sugar down to 2 cups.  Also, the recipe called for 1 cup of whipping cream but due to the addition of a whole cup of hot chocolate mix, I added the extra 1/2 cup.  And yes, you can use regular hot chocolate mix (without marshmallows) in place of the white chocolate.