Julia Child is among the most influential chefs of all time. Her work, with the help of friends Simone Beck and Louisette Bertolle, helped remove some of the mystique and haughtiness of French cooking, bringing high-end techniques and recipes to the masses. Among these many excellent recipes is one for mousseline au chocolat, Child's take on a chocolate mousse .
Besides a handful of tips relating to technique, including mixing most of the ingredients together in sections before they all combine, Child's mousseline differs from a standard chocolate mousse, all thanks to the ingredients she added or even outright replaced. Instead of folding in whipped cream like a standard mousse calls for, Child's recipe instead opts to whip up egg whites into a French meringue before folding that in. This makes for a much lighter texture because there's less fat in the finished dish.
However, the two aren't always interchangeable, so don't think you can do this with every dish if, for example, your doctor has suggested you cut down your fat consumption. How Julia Child's mousseline is different from a regular chocolate mousse It's worth noting that most modern chocolate mousse recipes use both egg yolks and whites in addition to whipped cream. But back in Julia Child's day, using whites at all was rare.
So, to not only use them, but to use them in place of whipped cream, was monumental. There's nothing wrong with the modern "best of both worlds" approach, since it makes a thick, rich, decade.
