Chocolate Ganache

A delicious, silky – yet dead simple – ganache that’s great for decorating cakes, dipping strawberries, or in any dessert you like.

Original recipe: https://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipes/chocolate-ganache/7gzr5egn

Ingredients

• 225g good quality eating chocolate – either dark chocolate, or a 50/50 mix of milk and dark
• 180g double cream
• 30mL liqueur of your choice, or vanilla essence (I use and recommend Frangelico hazelnut liqueur)

Method

1. Chop the chocolate up as fine as you can manage, and place into a mixing bowl (ideally heatproof)
2. Heat the cream while gently stirring in a saucepan over low-medium heat, until it starts bubbling consistently but not too vigorously
3. Remove from the heat, and pour the hot cream over the chocolate
4. Begin gently mixing the cream and chocolate either by hand or with a mixer on its lowest setting – you don’t really want air in it unless you’re going for a whipped ganache
5. Mix in the liqueur or vanilla

Notes

• The original recipe calls for butter, but I find I get a better result by using double cream and omitting the butter
• DO NOT CHEAP OUT ON THE CHOCOLATE! The deliciousness of the ganache is entirely dependent on the deliciousness of the chocolate! I love the chocolate the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie sells, and their giant 1kg blocks are great value if you’re cooking with it
• I’ve found this method to be basically foolproof – I’ve never found the chocolate splits or anything
• Adjust the ratio of cream to chocolate to get different consistencies – this is reasonably thick (ideal for shaping cakes), but you could use less cream for little enrobed ganache balls, or more (double, maybe triple) for a glaze like consistency. Once it’s made you can always simmer more cream and mix it in, but you can’t really add more chocolate easily.
• By introducing freshly simmered cream to high quality chocolate directly, any pathogens that might be in the cream are killed and the ability of more to grow is severely hampered. Combined with the alcohol, that means this ganache is actually safe at room temperature for a couple of days. Keep it in the fridge if you can though, it’ll be good for much longer that way.