Ganache

Chocolate Ganache – so necessary and so simple.

You can make it with dark, milk or white chocolate… You can add alcohol if you want it…. Pour it over cake and let it set, whip it until fluffy and spread it like frosting…. Drop big spoonfuls into hot milk for instant hot chocolate…. Smother ice cream with it… Or eat it by the spoon out of the fridge.

So. Many. Choices.

Chocolate Ganache Cake

Ingredients

The basic recipe is crazy easy… Equal weights chocolate and cream.

So if you need 200g of Ganache, use 100g of chocolate and 100mL of cream.

You need about 300g of ganache to pour over a 20cm cake as a glaze.

See the rules below for tips on which chocolate to use, and which cream.

Mixing

Chop the chocolate into 1cm squares or less. This will help the melting process.

Heat the cream til nearly boiling. You can do this in the microwave if you are careful… About 50 seconds for 250ml of cream. If you boil the cream it will split and make the ganache oily… So don’t.

Tip the chocolate into the hot cream and stir gently until it’s all smooth. This takes a couple of minutes. You may have to heat up the mixture a little if it has fallen below about 40 degrees (luke warm to the touch) as the chocolate won’t melt well at this temperature.

Ganache rules

If you want to make a lovely poured glaze, use the best tasting chocolate you can find. I like Lindt 60%. Dark ganache glaze looks best. Pour it while still slightly warm, and have your cake on a wire rack over a larger plate to avoid mess.
If you want to marble the ganache on a cake use Nestle melts, then it will all behave the same way.
When you’re making white chocolate ganache, use Cadbury Dream. It’s a nice colour… Milky bar is too yellow.
White cholcolate ganache won’t set as well as dark chocolate ganache.
Use cream with 35-45% milk fat. Chocolate is a bit milk fat sensitive. Too little and it won’t homogenise. Too much and it’ll be oily.
NEVER use cream with gelatin in it – check your labels especially in Australia.
If you want to make whipped ganache, let it cool right down to room temperature first. It will bulk up, lighten in colour and stiffen quite rapidly as it cools… Be careful not to over whip or the cream will curdle. It will still be yummy, just ugly.
Likewise if you are using ganache as a filling, unwhipped, let it nearly set before you spread it, to avoid upsetting oozings.
NEVER put ganache onto still warm baked goods. It will melt and you will be sad.
If you want to flavour your ganache with say, champagne, substitute 1/4 of the cream for champagne, and add the champagne last, blending it into the already smooth ganache.
More cream = thinner. More chocolate = thicker. You can mess with the ratio depending on the application, for instance, if you want saucy ganache, you could try 1.5:1 cream to chocolate. If you want well setting goo for macarons that are going to be served on a hot day, go 1:1.5 cream to chocolate.
You can add stuff to ganache. Crystallised chopped ginger, violet essence, freeze dried fruit powder (especially in white chocolate). Play around.