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Sunday 7 August 2016

How to make chocolate ganache

So what is chocolate ganache?

It is a smooth mix of chocolate and cream which is widely used for cake icing, filling in pastries or a sauce to go with your ice cream or pancakes. Apart from chocolate and cream, it can sometimes also have sugar, cornstarch, glucose syrup. Sugar is mainly for enhancing the sweetness whereas cornstarch and glucose syrup gives the ganache a glossy look.

Ganache can be runny to extremely thick based on the cream to chocolate ratio. Thickness increases with amount of chocolate. Equal weights of cream and chocolate gives the perfect consistency for icing cakes easily. You can simply pour it on the cake and refrigerate for the ganache to set. It takes about 20 minutes. When icing with ganache, use it when its warm otherwise it starts to set. If its too hot it will simply run down, so it should be just warm.


The moment you add more chocolate than cream, the ganache wouldn't be of pouring consistency and you will have to use a spatula to spread it evenly across the cake. This type of thick ganache is generally used for making truffles.


The type of chocolate you are using will define the flavor of ganache. If I start talking about different types of chocolate, it can take up an entire blog, will do that some other time, just a brief overview for now..


There is real chocolate also called couverture and then there is compound chocolate which most of us use in baking. The difference is that the real chocolate has chocolate liquor and cocoa butter where as a compound chocolate has cocoa powder and vegetable fats. If you have baking chocolate lying in your refrigerator, go check what it is! Real chocolate is richer in taste because it is after all the real thing! Compound chocolate mimics a real chocolate. That being said, not many people can tell the difference so its okay to use compound, but you wont get that natural glossy finish that real chocolate gives. Well, there is a workaround for that too! Its called cornstarch or glucose syrup!!! I will share the recipe of glossy ganache using both chocolates.


Here is the chocolate that I use -




























Enough said, now lets jump to the recipe!

Things/tools required-


1) Silicone spatula


2) Weighing scale 
- I can not do without this. Its one of the best and cheapest kitchen tools to invest in. I have this one.. my bro in law got me one of these in US. I have been using it for over 3 years now without any issues. It is available on Amazon India too, am hoping its the same one and not a duplicate - http://www.amazon.in/Bulfyss-Electronic-Kitchen-Digital-Weighing/dp/B00MKA9WXO/ref=sr_1_1?rps=1&ie=UTF8&qid=1469983350&sr=8-1&keywords=kitchen+weighing+scale




























Lets get started with chocolate ganache!

First things first, taste your chocolate, if its sweet enough for you then omit sugar or add sugar as per taste. If you are true chocolate fan, go for dark chocolate (at least 75%)


Ingredients (With Couverture aka real chocolate. Sufficient for 9" cake icing)

100 gms chocolate
100 gms cream (I use Amul cream)
Sugar (Optional, as per taste. Preferably powdered)

Melting chocolate in microwave-

Chop the chocolate into really tiny pieces and heat in microwave in short intervals. Initially 15 seconds, until the chocolate begins to melt. Then 10 seconds until it melts completely. After every interval, mix the chocolate using silicone spatula to ensure even distribution of heat. Uneven heat can result in chocolate getting burnt.
[ps: Burnt chocolate doesn't turn black in color, it seizes and doesn't melt anymore.]

Heat the cream until bubbles appear around the corners (boiling is not required). Stay close and turn

off the heat as soon as the bubbles appear. Add sugar and mix thoroughly.

Pour the cream into the chocolate and mix thoroughly using silicone spatula. I stress on silicone spatula because its much more convenient when working with chocolate or any other icing.


Once cream and chocolate have blended, what you have is Ganache.

Set aside until the temperature is a little over room temperature. You need to be present through out the process as it happens all too quickly.

The cake should be at room temperature.


Once ganache is warm, you can pour it on top first and then on the side by turning the cake as you pour. Refrigerate for about 20 minutes. Your ganache cake is ready :-)


Note: Ganache made from real chocolate is naturally glossy.


Storage and re-use is discussed in the end.


Ingredients (Using compound chocolate. Sufficient for 9" cake icing)

100 gms chocolate
100 gms cream (I use Amul cream)
2 tbsp Light corn syrup
Sugar (Optional, as per taste)

All steps are same as with real chocolate. You just need to heat the cream and corn syrup together before adding to chocolate.


Left over ganache can be refrigerated and reused by heating in microwave at short intervals.


Please visit this link for basic cake decoration tips.

3 comments:

  1. What you're saying is completely true. I know that everybody must say the same thing, but I just think that you put it in a way that everyone can understand. I'm sure you'll reach so many people with what you've got to say.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What you're saying is completely true. I know that everybody must say the same thing, but I just think that you put it in a way that everyone can understand. I'm sure you'll reach so many people with what you've got to say.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi, Really great effort. Everyone must read this article. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete