Image is of a wisk in a bowl of chocolate ganache.
I make chocolate ganache often enough now that I figured I should dedicate a whole post to it. It will be short (and sweet!) for now, but I may come back to this in a few days to report back after I use up some leftovers on truffles.
This particular post finally got put up due to my Chocolate Orange Christmas Bundt, but you can use it for all sorts of delicious chocolatey fun.
Nearly every ganache recipe I’ve seen is very, very similar, but I’ll link you to Joy of Baking because it’s got some helpful hints and tips on there, like that you should ideally use a chocolate with less than 58% cacao in it for textural reasons.
But look. Joy of Baking does butter in their ganache. I usually don’t. And then there’s all kinds of confusing crap between cups and ounces when we’re talking chocolate. But in my experience, if you take an average sized bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips (they’re usually about 10oz) and put that to a cup of cream, you’ll get a good ganache going. I’ve made it work with a little less. I’ve made it work with a little more. I’ve mixed bittersweet and semi-sweet. And the one time it all went wrong, it still tasted pretty darn good. Experiment a little.
Ingredients
9 ounces bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon dark rum (optional)
Directions
Chop the chocolate into small pieces and place it in a large stainless steel bowl.
In a large, high sided saucepan, heat cream over medium high heat, stirring frequently, until it starts to boil. Watch it carefully to ensure that it does not boil over. Remove immediately from heat and pour over the chopped chocolate.
Wisk the chocolate and cream together until the chocolate is completely melted and mixture is smooth.
For poured ganache, allow the mixture to cool slightly, then pour over the cake.
For whipped ganache, allow the mixture to cool at room temperature for about two hours, then use a stand mixer to whip the attachment into a fluffy frosting.
Store ganache in refrigerator.
