White Chocolate Ganache
I don’t think there is an occasion more joyous than a wedding. Of course, once a wedding has taken place, many more joys follow, like the arrival of a long awaited baby. But it all starts with a wedding, and I find weddings to be chock-filled with hope.
If you’re lucky, you only ever need to have one wedding – although some people have more than one, if not several! So the trick to getting your fill of wedding joy is to know lots of people who are planning on getting married.
As a cake baker, I am getting to participate in weddings, baby showers, naming days and even funerals (although not too many of those, thank goodness)! I consider it a privilege to be invited to create cakes and cupcakes for these landmark occasions in people’s lives. We (my darling husband and I) always try extra hard to come up with something special that fits the occasion and the people who we’re baking for. And what we’ve discovered is trying extra hard allows us an opportunity for continuous improvement. When people want something unusual on their cake(s) we find ourselves stretching our skills and often discovering something new in the process.
This month in preparation for a wedding we’ve discovered white chocolate ganache. If you’re a regular reader, you may have heard me curse white chocolate in the past. I am proud to say I’ve reconciled with white chocolate and I’ve cracked the very difficult to make but very professional looking white ganache. Here’s how you make white chocolate ganache.
Ingredients
750g white chocolate bits – Callebaut is the best
225ml pure cream
1. Pour the white chocolate bits into a large bowl. Give yourself plenty of room to manoeuvre.
2. Heat the pure cream in a small saucepan until it boils. Be very careful as you do not want it to burn to the bottom of the pan, or rise up and boil over.
3. Pour the boiling cream evenly over the white chocolate bits, then begin stirring with a fork. The mixture will be lumpy and sticky – just keep going and watch as the white chocolate melts.
4. There will be a point where the heat is all but gone from the mixture and you feel you need a little bit more to get across the line. Place the bowl in the microwave oven for 20 seconds. Then take it out and resume mixing, but this time do so with a balloon whisk. It helps to have a buddy on hand at this point, because the mixing requires a fair bit of elbow grease. Continue mixing until all lumps of chocolate are gone and you are left with a smooth, thick, viscose mixture.
5. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and stand aside. Leave the ganache to set for 24 hours. I kid you not – if you want to avoid heartache, leave the ganache for a full day. When you return to use it, it will be thick like butter and can be used to fill a cake and cover it. Heat your palette knife under hot water and run it over the surface of the ganache to achieve a perfectly smooth look.
6. What you do next is up to you – you could flick dark chocolate across your cake, decorate it with Guylian chocolates, or drape it with fondant. I have seen one baker attach large pieces of chocolate bark to the sides so that the pieces stand about two inches about the cake. He then filled the top of the cake with spun toffee – an incredibly elaborate looking cake for a very special occasion.
Comments
What is it you're trying to do with the ganache? Pour it over a cake as a cloak, smooth it over as an icing, use it as a foundation for fondant... my sense is the recipe above can be used for all those things at varying stages of setting (although cloaking might require two or three pour and set processes). What stage the ganache is at and when depends on the weather and how fast the stuff sets.
My experience of adding butter to a chocolate mix is that it prevents it from ever going hard. Sache torte uses that kind of ganache. I've never seen glucose added to a ganache recipe so I have no idea what effect it's meant to have.
Try using 750g of chocolate (dark or white) and 225ml of pure cream. Make sure you boil the cream properly to generate enough heat to commence the melting process, but don't let it burn on the bottom of the pot. Even with it good and hot, I always find I need to use the microwave two to four times to get all of the chocolate melted. I only do short bursts of 15 seconds so as to not overheat the ganache and not burn the chocolate. Also, once everything is melted, I still give the ganache a good mix with the balloon whisk to work the mix through. When you do this you can see the consistency thicken and the mix take on a shine.
Ganache is definitely a challenge. I do think environment changes the way it behaves, and trial and error is really the only way to figure out what will work where you live. For me, leaving the ganache to set for 24hours has been a revelation. That being said, it does produce a mix that is very hard to manipulate - yet does the job it's supposed to (form a base to lay fondant over).
I hope this all helps.
Petrina.
I use a recipe with about the same quantities 375g white chocolate, 300mL whipping cream, 40g glucose syrup and 40g butter. Make sure that you don't add the butter until the mixture has cooled a bit as you don't want it to melt. I leave my ganache to set in the fridge overnight and it just sets to a nice firm mix (a bit stiffer then peanut butter) and needs about 20 seconds in the microwave to soften enough to spread like a butter icing. I then refidgerate the cupcakes again to make sure it doesn't go runny.
The fluffier you want your ganache the lower the chocolate to cream ratio you need. if you want it for pouring then you need a lot more chocolate.
hope this helps :)
I'm a pretty amateur baker, tasked with making a cake for my great-aunt-in-law's 70th birthday . . . and, moer astonishing than the writer above who doesn't have access to parchment paper, *I* don't have a MICROWAVE. That's right. not enough room in my kitchen! (NYC) - so, can I do this entire thing over a double boiler?
thanks,
elizabeth
I want to make a white chocolate mud cake for my daughters 1st birthday in the shape of the number one and cover it with your white chocolate ganache will this result in a smooth result with one coat. I really don't want to use fondant to achieve a smooth coating
as the ganache would taste so much nicer.
Regards
Allison
Cheers,
Petrina.
I do have a lot leftover, so I'm hoping that freezing it won't destroy it.
never was there are more commented on blog on Kitchen Alchemy! Whoever added the comment about the corn syrup - thanks! That's something new to try. Re the yellowness of white chocolate ganacge, you can't remove it. It's to do with the type of white chocolate you used. I think this buttery yellow colour is apetising anyway - let us all know if you used the recipe in the end!
On a new note, I used the white chocolate ganache recently as the filling for chocolate balls. I let it set, scooped it into balls using a melon baller, then dipped it in milk chocolate couveture and sprinkled the balls with toasted almond flakes. YUUUUMMM!
Happy ganaching!
Petrina.
I have experimented recently with white choc ganache and got it REALLY WHITE!!! Not sure if anyone has access to it but most cake decorating stores should have WHITE choc powder. And it WORKS!! I have found using white choc with a ratio of 600gm choc & 300mls cream it sets quite fast when I was using it to dip cupcakes in. But on the upside, the finish was sooooo smooth it looked FABULOUS!! Happy baking every1!!
I was just google-ing 'white chocolate ganache' when I came across your blog...SO beautiful!! Will be back for more -in a rush now having to make said chocolate ganache ......
Have a nice day :)
Nicola
Yes you can definitely do that - I've poured it over a cake covered with whipped cream quite effectively. Wait for it to get to the point where it's thick and gloopey, but still running. Put your cake on a wire stand and pour the ganache over it. Maybe catch the drips underneath with a tray or some baking paper (my husband usually eats those bits).
Yes you can colour ganache. A reader previously added food colour to the cream before pouring it over the chocolate. I would suggest you use proper chocolate colouring. It's based on titanium dioxide and will maintain a true colour once added to the chocolate. Try googling Roberts Confectionery for this product!
I love your blog already since some time, so I was very excited to see your post about white chocolate ganache, something I fiddled around with myself.
I have just one question, why don't you melt the chocolate in a double bioler or in the microwave before you add the cream? I normally do it like that with dark chocolate ganache and I was just wondering if that would be possible with white chocolate as well...
Besides that, keep up the great work, you rock!!:)
I was wondering if the icing is dry to touch when set. I am making some cupcakes for a friend's wedding and I am stacking up three different sized cupcakes like mini tiered wedding cakes. I dont want to do this with "wet" icing as it will make a mess of the cupcake papers.
The rich choc cupcake recipe I was going to use comes with a recipe for a chocolate ganache that is very soft and doesn't really set. I want a ganache-type icing to get the rich flavour but need it to dry.
Firstly, this ganache can set very hard, like butter that's been in the fridge. If you touch it, you will leave a finger print in it, but it's not soft at all. I do think if you are going to stack cakes on top of each other each will leave a dent in the icing of the cake below.
Re colouring, you should put the colour in at the initial melting stage. Do take note from a previous comment from someone who wanted pretty pink but found the yellow tone of the white chocolate didn't give a true colour. I believe you need to force the ganache to white by using titanium dioxide, and then add your colour over the top. It will only ever be a pastel colour though.
If you want a more true colour, you could buy pre-coloured candy chocolate, or you could buy colouring powder specifically for chocolate. In Australia, Robert's Confectionery is the best supplier.
Cheers,
Petrina
This is such an interesting blog!
I was wondering how much this receipe makes? Like how many cupcakes do you think it would cover as a base for fondant?
Also is there a way to bring it back to a softer consistency if it has hardened too much?
Thanks!
I am from Australia, in the Northern Territory. I did mine over a double boiler, I melted the cream and chocolate together.. once the mix was hot I took it off the heat, but kept it over the hot water. melts together really well like that. I used 3X 180G packets of MilkyBar chocolate ( the brand with the blone kid) and a little bit over 1 cup of thickened cream. Turns out really white :D I also added 1/4 of a teaspoon of Robert's confectionary Strawberry flavouring and about a tonne of pink colouring but it tasted AMAZING! Although I found that after a little while my ganache started to look like that slightly grainy look cream has just before you screw it up and it turns to butter. Is it just the heat or did I do something wrong?
I am getting married in a few weeks and am looking for wedding cake ideas. I am working with someone who is a little new to the industry but really open to suggestions. Our model cake would be a simplified version of Tuxedo cake (available at most grocery stores).
Can you suggest a recipes for a decadent chocolate cake that would complement this white chocolate ganache (used as a filling)? For the display cake, we will use fondant but for the slab cake (will be cut by the kitchen for our guests) what would you suggest that we decorate the top with? Buttercream? We're a little concerned about the outcome being a bit too sweet ... Thoughts?
Thanks!
Sorry I have not responded to the last few comments in a timely manner!
Re the wedding cake: I tried this white chocolate ganache on a chocolate cake in June this year and it was a monumental disaster. The dark crumbs got into the ganache and made it look unsightly plus the ganache never set. It was a stacked cake and I could never get it to sit up straight or stay level. I don't recommend this ganache on a chocolate cake.
For wedding cakes I don't know what a tuxedo cake is! Sounds nice though! Of course for a wedding display cake I always favour a fondant covered cake. For my own wedding the kitchen cake was a slab of sponge filled with fresh strawberries and cream,, topped with crispy white icing the same as what had been scraped up the sides of the wedding cake to look like Spanish stucco. It was very easy and very inexpensive, but tasty! I noticed my uncle Allan eat more than one piece.
If I've missed you wedding I'm really sorry - I hope it was a wonderful day for you. -P.
im making a choc mud 3 teir wedding cake and for the 1st time i've been asked to colour the ganache a bright yellow. the 1st gel dye i was recommended resulted in the cream separating from the chocolate and not bonding/stiffening. the second batch i used powder and i have had the same problem.
i have never had this problem before using ganache. any suggestions or tips would be great.
you have have been using gel colors for the usual buttercream or meringue icings. look for "candy colors" that is made specifically for chocolate.