I’d found my one-ingredient masterpiece before I’d even gotten the email about the callback. I’d spotted it in one of Mom’s Sweet Life magazines while clipping articles she’d marked. She’d promised me new hockey skates if I organized them in a binder for her. When I saw the recipe for a chocolate mousse made with just chocolate and water, I had to try it. Mostly because I didn’t believe it would work. How could you make mousse without eggs or cream?

If I’m being totally honest, chocolate mousse with eggs and cream is better. But as long as the chocolate you’re using is good, the one-ingredient mousse is too.

It was the perfect recipe for One Ingredient Masterpiece. The rules of the challenge allow you to use unlimited spices, herbs, oil, and butter to cook and flavor your one-ingredient, but I’d get extra points for a recipe that was truly a single ingredient. Water didn’t count.

I couldn’t wait to see the look on Chef JJ’s face when I told her the mousse was just chocolate and water. It wasn’t about winning anymore. It was about showing what I could do.

“Okay, folks, this is it. One Ingredient Masterpiece!” Chef JJ shouted. “Twenty minutes to transform one ingredient into something spectacular. Starting now!”

Dieter blew his kazoo. “Go and go and go!”

19:59…19:58…19:57…

We all ran to the pantry.

Chocolate…chocolate… I scanned the shelves. Chocolate!

I grabbed a semi-sweet bar and ran back to my station.

16:22…

I pulled a large mixing bowl from under the sink, filled it with ice cubes, then set a smaller glass bowl in the ice. Next I broke the bar into pieces and dropped them in a saucepan with one-third of a cup of water. Then I put the heat on low and stirred. I’d keep stirring until it was all melted. I wasn’t taking a chance on burning the chocolate. There were lots of things you could fix, but there was no coming back from burnt chocolate.

Standing there stirring, watching the chocolate transform from solid to liquid right before my eyes, something happened. Everything else went away. It was just me and the smell of melting chocolate, lifting me up like a magic carpet.

11:37…

The chocolate was smooth now, so I poured it into the bowl sitting in the ice bath. Then I whisked it as fast as I could.

It’s easy to whip too long. You have to catch it right when the surface goes shiny, which is usually about five minutes after you start whisking. If you miss that moment and keep going, the mousse turns grainy and thick, kind of like cement. Not bad tasting, just a little gritty, but tasty cement would never fly on Can You Cut It? so when I realized I’d let it go too long, I melted it again, and beat it until it was just right.

I finished right as the buzzer went off, and I felt myself smile, for real, no strings this time.