Five Fresno State marketing students set out Thursday night to break the Guinness World Record for the largest chocolate mousse.

The current record is 313 pounds, said Rachel Schilling, Fresno State senior marketing student and the project organizer. The group hopes to beat this by making a 500-pound chocolate mousse.

The five students involved in the project are Schilling, Zachary Patterson, Steve Partain, Ariel Hernandez and Eneida Gonzalez.

The record attempt is part of a class project that seniors in the marketing department must complete to graduate. The class, Strategic Marketing, is head by professor William Rice of the Department of Management and Marketing in the Craig School of Business.

Students are assigned to conduct major marketing campaigns, such as world record attempts. The projects sometimes benefit a charitable cause, are free and open to the public and rely on donations and sponsorships.

“This class is the most amazing class I’ve ever had,” Schilling said. “It’s been an amazing experience.”

Each team consists of groups of five or six students, who must work together to bring their project to fruition. All the members of the team making the chocolate mousse are seniors in their final semester.

“This is really the pressure cooker before we get out of there,” said Steve Partain, a senior in marketing and a member of the team. “This is the final.”

The mousse is made of four key ingredients: sugar, butter, eggs and chocolate. They have 364 pounds of chocolate, 424 pounds of eggs, 80 pounds of butter and 165 pounds of sugar.

The idea for making the mousse came from team member Eneida Gonzalez.

“We wanted to do something that was cool and that we could eat,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez researched current records that would be feasible to break, landing on the largest chocolate mousse. Once researching how to make chocolate mousse, she brought her idea to the team, who supported her idea.

“It just started from nothing and now it’s here and we’re actually working to break a world record,” Gonzalez said.

They received donations of money from family, friends and businesses. With the money donated, they purchased the ingredients needed to complete the mousse. What the donations did not cover, the team members purchased themselves out of pocket.

So far, roughly $800 has been put towards the mousse, Schilling said.

The projects that they participate in and complete give them real world experience, Schilling said, such as communicating and working with people.

The experience has helped the group practice skills such as working with the community, time management and dividing responsibilities among themselves.

“It’s more work then anyone would ever imagine,” Schilling said. “You’re having to ask people for things to donate and it’s hard to do that. I’d much prefer to buy the stuff myself than ask people for money.”

Schilling said the class was one of the hardest experiences she’s ever had. The curriculum pushed her to the limit, yet she feels confident with herself after taking the course.

One hardship the group faced was finding organizations to donate to the project so close to the holidays, Schilling said.

Donors to the team included: Best Weights, who donated the use of their scale; The Fresno Rescue Mission donated the use of their facilities; with money donations from Aero Sheet Metal, Superior Hardware, Inc., friends and family. The group received approximately $550 in donations.

The team began working on their project in early September. To submit their work to Guinness, they must keep records of their process and actions.

“It’s been probably the most challenging thing I’ve done in school by far,” Partain said. “There have been a lot of highs and lows.”

The chocolate mousse will be donated to the Fresno Rescue Mission. Guinness will not allow edible world records be submitted unless the food is consumed, Schilling said. This is to prevent projects being completed and thrown away.

“I am really emotional, actually,” Schilling said through tears. “It’s been an amazing semester.”

Along with the chocolate mousse, students in the marketing course will also attempt to break three other world records.

The largest cup of lemonade attempt Saturday will be from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. in Old Town Clovis in the parking lot at the intersection of Bullard and Pollasky avenues. The team has a goal of 2,000 gallons of lemonade and will juice 40,000 lemons in preparation.

After the parade, the largest dessert party hopes 800 people will come to the Clovis Veterans Memorial Building, 808 4th St., to help break the current record of 740 that was set August 2012 by Physicians Mutual in Omaha. Beginning at 8:15 p.m. free desserts will be provided, including cupcakes, brownies, cheesecakes, éclairs and cookies provided by Frosted Cakery, Cakes by Amberly, Rich’s Brownie Baker, Bee’s Bites and members of­ the Marketing 188 class.

The world’s largest serving of salsa will be attempted 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 7 at PR Farms in Clovis, 2917 E. Shepherd Ave., where students will attempt to surpass the 2,672 record by serving 3,500 pounds of salsa.

In previous years, marketing students have promoted everything from the largest recycled Bulldog to one of the biggest attempts that didn’t succeed, the spring 2011 water balloon fight that drew thousands of people to campus.

This summer, Guinness World Records verified two submissions from last year giving Fresno State marketing students the record for the World’s Largest Smoothie attempted in spring 2012 and the World’s Largest Fruit Salad attempted in fall 2011.