Today on The Stay At Home Chef
I'm showing you how to make Chocolate Ganache.
This is the ultimate guide to chocolate ganache.
i'll be showing you everything you need to know to make the perfect ganache,
from choosing your chocolate , to 5 different popular little variations and ratios,
all the way through to troubleshooting.
There are lots of different options when it comes to chocolate that you can use to make ganache.
Chocolate chips are probably the most convenient,
but you can also use melting wafers and chocolate bars,
although this is the most expensive option.
The most important thing is that you choose a high quality chocolate.
You can see that I favor Guittard and Ghirardelli,
but Lindt chocolate is also good and widely available.
Inexpensive or low quality chocolate may have additives in it that prevent the ganache from setting up,
so you want to use a good quality.
Now the first type of ganache that we're going to make is a traditional smooth 1:1 ratio ganache that's great for drizzling and drip cakes.
This type of ganache has a 1:1 ratio.
Chocolate chips are really convenient,
but i'm first going to show you how to make it using the bars.
Got 8 ounces of chocolate here.
I want to give it a rough chop.
You need it to be in small pieces that will melt easier,
and you can see why chocolate chips are a little more convenient.
Then you'll transfer your roughly chopped chocolate to a small mixing bowl,
and you want it to be either metal or glass.
A soft chocolate ganache is a 1:1 ratio,
so since we have 8 ounces of chocolate you'll also need 8 ounces of heavy cream,
or you can use whipping cream.
Next we need to bring this cream to a simmer.
you can do this in the microwave or on the stove.
So I'll pour this into a saucepan and heat it to a simmer over medium heat.
You don't want to go much higher than medium.
I just give it a little occasional swirl,
then once you see those bubbles forming on the edge it's about to simmer and it'll rise really fast,
so keep a close eye on it.
Then we'll pour that hot bubbling cream right over our chocolate in the mixing bowl.
We're going to let this sit for about 3 minutes, and the heat from the cream is going to melt all of our chocolate.
After about 3 or so minutes you'll want to grab a rubber spatula and start giving this a gentle stir.
At first it just kind of looks like muddied milk,
but just keep stirring gently.
It'll start coming together and then you continue stirring until it comes together into one smooth ganache.
So you can see there's a little bit of stripes there but as I stir it they disappear.
You should end up with a nice drizzly chocolate ganache,
and then you are ready to use your ganache.
My favorite way to use a thin chocolate ganache is on a Boston Cream Pie.
So I have layers of yellow cake sitting here with pastry cream in the center,
and we can drizzle this ganache right on top.
You can smooth it out or let it drip over the edges for a little bit of a drip cake.
Next I'm going to show you how to make a whipped chocolate ganache.
This makes for a great frosting because it has a frosting like consistency.
You'll follow the same method as before,
one part chocolate to one part cream,
but once you hit this smooth ganache consistency you'll want to cover your bowl and place it in the fridge for at least an hour.
Of course I already have one ready.
Now grab my hand mixer and get in there and start whipping.
As you mix it you're beating air into that heavy cream just like a whipped cream,
but this will actually be much thicker because of the chocolate.
And just continue mixing for about 3-5 minutes until you reach the desired consistency.
Then I transfer mine to a piping bag because I am going to pipe this onto some cupcakes.
And just look at how beautiful this ends up on a cupcake.
Next we're going to use our semi-sweet chocolate chips to make a firm ganache,
which is good if you want to make truffles or if you want to use it as a spreadable frosting.
This ganache is a 2:1 ratio.
So for 8 ounces of whipping cream we'll need 16 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips,
and if you don't own a scale it's always written on the bag.
it's either 11 1/2 or 12 ounces for a standard sized bag of chocolate chips.
Pour in our 8 ounces of simmering cream and let it sit.
With this 2:1 ratio you end up with a lot more chocolate which makes it firm and thick,
and it'll thicken up even more as it cools.
I'm not even done stirring and you can already see that this one is much thicker.
Depending on what you're using it for you may want to use it right away or let it sit at room temperature until it thickens even more.
Look at how easily this spreads on a cupcake.
For these first 3 ganaches you may have noticed that I used semi-sweet chocolate.
You could also use dark chocolate.
Next I'm going to show you how to make it using milk chocolate which requires a little bit of a different ratio.
Milk chocolate has some added fat and oil in it,
so for this you'll need a 2.5:1 ratio,
or you can go up to 3:1,
so for 8 ounces of heavy cream you'll need 20 ounces of chocolate chips.
Then once again we'll pour in our 8 ounces of heavy cream,
but this time you'll notice that the cream doesn't completely cover the chocolate chips.
So instead of just letting it sit,
I use my rubber spatula to kind of tuck those chocolate chips down into that hot cream so they can melt.
After about 3 minutes the heat from the cream will melt the chocolate and you'll just stir until smooth.
You use this ganache in the exact same way,
it's just a little more sweet for those who are not fans of dark chocolate.
Next I'm going to show you how to make it using white chocolate,
which is a bit of a misnomer because it's not actually chocolate.
With white baking chips or white melting wafers you'll need to use a 3:1 ratio.
I don't actually have enough white chocolate baking chips.
so I'm going to add in the white melting wafers because you can combine them.
A 3:1 ratio would be 24 ounces of white chocolate to every 8 ounces of heavy cream.
Then we'll just pour in our 8 ounces of simmering heavy cream.
Just like with the milk chocolate chips,
you'll need to use your rubber spatula to tuck those melting wafers and chocolate chips down into the cream
so that they have a chance to melt from the heat.
After about 3 minutes you'll just want to start stirring this until it's smooth.
Just like our other ganaches you can whip, drizzle, or spread.
Now that i've shown you how to make the 5 most common ganaches,
it's time for some troubleshooting.
A common problem for ganaches is that they end up grainy or lumpy,
but that's actually really easy to fix.
All you need to do is head to the stove and set up a double boiler.
It's really simple.
All you need is a saucepan with a little bit of boiling water in it.
The steam can then heat up the bowl.
You want to choose them so that your bowl can sit right on top,
and now you know why I told you to use a glass or metal mixing bowl,
because these are heat safe in case you run into trouble.
Now the important thing with double boilers is that the bottom of the bowl should not be touching the water,
it should be sitting above so it's just heated by steam.
Then it's just a matter of stirring.
Usually a ganache is grainy or lumpy because the chocolate didn't melt all the way,
so this is just a matter of adding a little more heat to get that mixed in,
and you can see that the heat smoothed this right out.
All right then there's really only 2 other trouble spots that you might run into when it comes to ganache.
If you're stirring your ganache and you find that it's too thick for your needs,
all you have to do is heat a little bit more heavy cream,
and then you can stir that in about 1 tablespoon at a time.
Just make sure that the cream is hot and the ganache.
You can always re-warm on the double boiler if you let it sit too long.
Then if you have the opposite problem and you feel like your ganache is too thin,
that's also an easy fix.
All you have to do is while it's still warm add in a little bit more chocolate,
and of course once again you can always use the double boiler if you have trouble getting it to melt.
Now that I have all of these bowls of chocolate ganache on my counter,
I think we're ready to eat.
Thanks for watching.
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