Chocolate Ganache – Trials and Tribulations

I have only made chocolate ganache a number of times. It must be about 5 times now (if you count the 3 disasters I had with it yesterday!)

I had heard how tricky it can be, so I have been putting it off.

 

My first attempt was a couple of weeks ago.  I looked up the recipe online and found loads; some with butter, some without.  Some with glucose and some without.  I decided to go for one that had a 2:1 ratio of dark chocolate to cream with a knob of butter.  The result was amazing and I was really pleased with it, so of course I thought I had the knack.  I knew how to make ganache now.  Job done.

 

Of course it is never quite so easy as that.

 

I had a birthday cake to do for Sunday so I made the cake, all ready to fill and decorate on Saturday so that it would be ready to do any last touches on Sunday and then out for delivery.

Ganache number 1:

I followed the same recipe as the one I have made previously.  The 2:1 with a knob of butter.  I thought I would be clever and heat up the cream in the microwave to save me a suacepan.  I took the cream out (It had boiled) and poured it over the grated chocolate and stirred.  It split.  It didn’t look good at all.

I threw it away.

Ganache number 2:

I ditched the microwave idea and reverted back to boiling the cream in the saucepan.  Poured it over the chocolate, added the butter and stirred.  This time it looked like emulsion paint.  With that layer of clear liquid over the top.  I stirred and stirred but it just did not get that nice glossy finish that I was after.

I threw it away.

Ganache number 3:

This time I looked up “problems with ganache” on the internet.  There is of course loads of advice. One of them being, don’t worry! You don’t have to throw your ganache away, you can save it.  Great! Bit late now though! In the mean time I have now taken another trip to the shops to replenish the cream and chocolate.

This time I follow a different recipe.  No butter, just chocolate and double cream. I stir, it looks a little bit strange so I add some glucose (as suggested) and it finally starts to look good.  Hooray!!! I did it!

I poured the ganache over my cake, put all the chocolate on that was also due to go on the cake and was pleased with the result.  As you can see by the first picture, this is how I left my cake on Saturday night:

It’s a bit thicker than I would have liked it, but as I have said ganache is still a learning curve to me.  So then I went to bed.

 

Sunday morning I wake up and go and inspect my cake.  I was horrified at what I saw.  The ganache was no longer shiny, it had split and there were horrible milky bits ALL over the chocolate!:

 

Not a pretty sight at all! Panic mode begins to set in.  What do I do? Can I rescue this? How am I going to make this cake look how I want it to after this has happened??!!

In my mind, there was only one thing I could do and that was to painstakingly remove all of the chocolate balls and get rid of the ganache:

Getting there, slowly but surely!

Finally all of the ganache is off.  Now time to recover and then for the 4th, attempt a new ganache:

This time I choose a different recipe for ganache.  I think the mention of it being “foolproof” kind of did it for me, I have no idea why!

Ganache number 4:

This recipe called for me to start the melting process of the chocolate and butter before adding the cream. Telling me NOT to let the cream boil fully (insert lightbulb moment here)

This time, it was gorgeous, it was shiny and it was runny.  It simply looked perfect.  FINALLY!!!

So on went the ganache and on went some new chocolate balls (which again was something else I needed to replenish by this time)

The final result.  Pretty much from something I was very unhappy with, to something I was very happy with.  A big sigh of relief from me! 🙂

Thanks for reading! x