When I was little, there was one job

When I was little, there was one job I imagined to be the coolest of all and it had to do with my addiction of having to try every new chocolate or ice cream flavor available. I kept wondering about that person who would be in charge of coming up with all those great new flavors? Somebody with nothing else on the agenda but experimenting with chocolate day in and day out!
Today, looking at the shelves in our grocery stores gives me the impression that my former dream job – chocolate flavor creator – is more popular than ever, or how would one explain the incredible amount of new flavors popping up everywhere? And while new brands or flavors would have immediately triggered my pavlov reflex in the past, over time the letdowns accumulated. The Cheese-walnut-raisin-combo was quite a disappointment. Who would have thought? Right. Now I am back to more basic flavors.

Well until… I came about this recipe by pure coincidence. Albeit I tend to be a bit cautious about trying recipes from a source I yet haven’t verified “culinary trustworthy”, having had all the ingredients at hand, the risk seemed minimal. Clearly more on the skeptical end, I was quite intrigued by the chocolate & olive oil combo. And stepping on uncertain ground once more paid off, I was very positively surprised by the recipe’s outcome. Wonderful silky mouth-feel, airy, but definitely not light – mind you, we just added olive oil AND eggs AND sugar AND whipped cream! My olive oil of choice was a delicate and mild one, with low acidity and a nutty note, which was the perfect counterpart, still perceivable in the chocolate mousse, but not overpowering.

Yet not everything about the recipe was gold: Let me quote some of the amazingly poorly written instructions: Brush the inside of four rings with melted chocolate, then chill. [...] Fill the chocolate into the rings and chill for 2 hours. Remove the rings, sprinkle with cocoa and serve on a plate.
First question, what kind of rings? What size? As I only own metal dessert rings I used those, but the “brush the inside with melted chocolate” gave me a headache and brought up question number two: how was I supposed to detach the rings from the chilled chocolate later on? How about lining the rings with stripes of parchment paper before brushing? Considering all the unknowns I only sacrificed one metal ring and filled the rest of the mousse into neat little bowls. Thank god. The miracle I was hoping for – of course – didn’t happen, there is no way you can easily separate this mousse from a metal ring, NO WAY. What you get is a mess par excellence, what can I say, I should have known better… anyway, despite the great outcome, badly written recipes suck!

Slowly melt the chopped chocolate in a bain-marie while continuously stirring, then add the olive oil until evenly combined. Put aside and let cool slightly.
Beat the egg yolks and white sugar (50g) until the cream turns pale and thick.
In a separate bowl beat the egg whites and white sugar (50g) until stiff.
In another bowl whip heavy cream until stiff.
Take the bowl with the chocolate/olive oil mix and carefully fold in one after another: start with the creamy egg yolks, then the stiff egg whites and lastly the whipped cream. Fill in nice serving bowls, cover with cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours, better over night.