What Is Chocolate ganache and How Can I Use It?
If chocolate ganache has turned up in a recipe or caught your eye at the store, here's what you need to use it with confidence and how to choose it, cook it, store it, what to substitute, and 3 recipes to try it in.
Key Points
- Ganache is just chocolate melted into warm cream into one smooth, glossy emulsion.
- The chocolate-to-cream ratio sets the texture: glaze, frosting, or firm truffle.
- By weight: 1:1 spreads, 2:1 chocolate makes truffles, more cream pours thin.
- It splits when cream is too hot; whisk in a little cold cream to fix.
- Keeps a week in the fridge; bring back to room temperature before pouring.
What is chocolate ganache?
Ganache is the simplest fancy thing in baking: chocolate melted into warm cream until the two come together as one smooth, glossy emulsion. That is the entire recipe. Two ingredients, no flour, no eggs.
What makes it useful is how its texture shifts with the ratio of chocolate to cream. The same two ingredients give you a pourable glaze, a pipeable frosting, or a firm truffle center, just by changing how much cream you use.
It does a lot of jobs. The same bowl glazes a cake or coats a batch of Caramel Chocolate Eclairs.
How to Make and Use It
Chop the chocolate fine, heat the cream until it just steams (do not boil it), pour it over the chocolate, and let it sit a minute before stirring from the center out until it turns glossy and smooth.
The ratio is the whole game, measured by weight. Equal parts chocolate and cream, 1:1, sets soft enough to spread or pipe once cooled.
Two parts chocolate to one part cream, 2:1, sets firm enough to roll into truffles. One part chocolate to one and a half parts cream pours as a thin glaze.
Use a warm, fluid ganache for pouring and dipping. Let it cool and thicken for spreading, or chill it firm for truffles and scooping.
Tips and Common Mistakes
The classic failure is a broken, greasy ganache that looks curdled instead of smooth. It splits when the cream is too hot or the mix gets stirred too hard too soon.
To bring a broken batch back, whisk in a tablespoon of cold cream or warm milk at a time until it pulls together and turns glossy again. Patience fixes most splits.
Use real cream, not milk, since the fat is what carries the emulsion. And let hot ganache cool to room temperature before you pour it over a cake, or it runs straight off instead of coating.
Storage
Ganache keeps in the fridge for up to a week in a sealed container, and it freezes for a couple of months. It firms up cold, so let it come back to room temperature, or warm it gently, before you pour or pipe it again.
Press plastic wrap onto the surface while it cools to keep a skin from forming.
Quick facts
- In Chinese
- 巧克力伽纳彻
- British (UK) term
- Chocolate ganache
- en français
- ganache au chocolat
- en español
- ganache de chocolate
Recipes using chocolate ganache
There are 3 recipes that contain this ingredient.
Caramel Chocolate Eclairs
Instead of going to Tim Horton's, try making these scrumptious snacks that will satisfy your sweet tooth.
Caramel Rum Delirium Ice Cream Cake* Part 1
Homemade caramel rum cake layered with double mocha ice cream and semisweet chocolate ganache. A multi-layer showstopper dessert for serious celebrations. This is Part 1 covering the caramel and cake.
Heaven & Hell Cake
Heaven and hell cake stacks airy angel food and dark devil's food layers with peanut butter mousse between, all under a glossy chocolate ganache. A showstopping light-and-dark cake with a chocolate-peanut butter heart.
