I have been on a salad binge the last couple weeks, particularly enjoying Caesar salad for its anchovies. Gotta LOVE a salty little fish that makes folks think you are crazy…and doubles as bait. That reminds me…the canned mullet went fairly well, so I want to look into canning some of the local “bait” like sardines that run annually here….

Sorry, I love my local finned Omega-3 sources…, you’d call them fish. Its a bit of an obsession.

Sorry. This is supposed to be about chocolate mousse. Leave it to me to add sardines and anchovies to the mix. Not literally though. Yet.

Salads! I’ve enjoyed the Caesar salsads, having made my own dressing, since every store-bought version I’ve seen contains soybean oil. (Paleo doesn’t allow consuming legumes.) So I mix up my own batches of dressing, sometimes using buttermilk, sometimes heavy cream, being that we DO include dairy in our version of the Paleo lifestyle.

My dressing consist of a dairy base, olive or coconut oil, spices, and hot sauce. (You don’t have to like this, you just have to understand how I got to the end result!) I pour all the ingredients into a pint Mason jar, put on a lid, and shake it to mix it up, mixing container and storage unit all in one!

Two days ago, I poured in my heavy cream, right from the fridge, liberally added the Crystal hot sauce and the spices, then mixed it up. Then I added in about the same amount of coconut oil as the cream I used, lidded it, and shook it up. As I listened to it sloshing around, I was shocked to hear it stop making a sound after about 5 seconds.

Shit! What the hell did I do wrong? My first thought was that I had added too much Crystal sauce, a vinegar-based item, and the vinegar curdled the cream. This is roughly how we make one of our cheeses on the rare occasion that we do so.

I opened the jar to see a pink (Crystal sauce and cream, remember) cream cheese-looking substance. I tasted it, and experienced a little bit of heaven when, to my shock and surprise, the substance actually melted on my tongue. WTF?

Then it dawned on me. Coconut oil melts at 76 degrees Fahrenheit, several degrees cooler than the wife keeps our house. Most days, the ones where she is comfortable, the coconut oil sits as a liquid on our counter. The days when *I* am comfortable, it sits as a solid. When I mixed the cold cream with the coconut oil, it simple solidified.

I still used it as a dressing that night, and every bite held all the flavor I was trying for in my dressing, only it was like cheese crumbles that melted in my mouth. What an amazing personal discovery!

Fast-forward a day (and a nap) later, and as I was waking from an afternoon cat-nap, it hit me- chocolate and cream go well together, this is a great chance to make a gluten-free, Paleo-healthy chocolate snack, similar to my Paleo Pudding, only this one wil melt in your mouth!

So here it is. Adjust as needed, particularly the sweetener.

• equal parts COLD heavy cream and coconut oil
• unsweetened cocoa powder
• sweetener of your choice

I use a cup of cream and a tablespoon of cocoa powder, poured into a jar, then with a lid, shake it all up to mix it.
Add in the liquid (76 degrees or warmer) coconut oil, then re-lid and shake until it stops sloshing. You’ll know  when it happens.

What I’ve found is an equal portion of coconut sugar makes it agreeable to my wife, and that’s the stress test I have to pass. I liked the creamy bitterness without sweetener, but as I mentioned before, I also like anchovies – I know I have odd taste preferences.

And when I say it melts in your mouth….oh my gosh..it REALLY does!

If nothing else, this is a fun project to try with the kids. Substitute the cocoa powder with Ovaltine or Quick, and give it a shake. If they (or you) like chocolate pudding, this WILL be a hit!

Peace,
db