hey there it's Baker Bettie and welcome back to another video today we are diving into
the topic of chocolate ganache which is a super simple pastry component that's made with only
two ingredients chocolate and cream that's it and depending on the ratios you use to
make this you can use it for all kinds of things things like chocolate truffles or
whipped chocolate frosting a filling on a cake or a glaze for a cake there's so many uses so let me
show you how to make it so we'll talk a little bit more about ganache ratios here in a moment but the
technique for making the ganache is the same no matter what ratios you're using like i said
this requires only two ingredients chocolate and cream and then i always like to add a little pinch
of salt because salt always makes sweet things better so i'm using ghirardelli 60% chocolate today
and you want to use a chocolate somewhere around that percentage you don't really want to use a
super sweet milk chocolate because we're going to be adding a lot of cream to the mixture so you
want a richer chocolate if you're starting with a chocolate bar like i am here you want to chop it
pretty small so that the cream can easily melt it and you can technically use chocolate chips
i often do use the ghirardelli 60% chocolate chips but just keep in mind that chocolate is
the star of the show here so the higher quality chocolate you use the better it's going to taste
any time you are chopping chocolate a serrated knife is really helpful it just really helps you
kind of get it into some small pieces so once your chocolate is chopped up really nice and fine you
can go ahead and place that in your mixing bowl and the next thing we're going to do is just pour
hot cream right over the top so i've heated this cream up until it is very very hot and
i'm just going to slowly pour it over my chocolate making sure that it is getting all of it submerged
if some of your chocolate is peeking out of the top you can just use a spatula to make
sure it's all submerged and then you're just going to let this sit in the bowl for about
five minutes that heat from the cream is going to melt the chocolate and then we will get it into a
really nice and smooth ganache so once you have let your ganache sit for about five minutes then
you can go ahead and start whisking now i'm going to quickly just add a decent pinch of salt in here
and what you're going to do is you're going to start with your whisk right in the center
of the bowl and you're going to very slowly start whisking in small circles and then you can kind of
gradually get wider and wider now the reason why you want to kind of slowly incorporate this
mixture together is because we don't want our emulsion to break cream is already an emulsion
and we're mixing it with chocolate which has a lot of fat in it and so we want this to stay a really
smooth emulsion so start right in the center and then you can get bigger and bigger as you whisk
and get this into a really nice smooth mixture and that is it that's all it takes to make ganache
so what i have made here is a one to one ratio ganache which means there are equal
parts chocolate to cream by weight you do need to go by weight because one cup of chocolate and one
cup of cream are not gonna weigh the same thing so what i did here was four ounces of chocolate
to four ounces of cream but you can use any amount you want if you need a lot of ganache
then you are just going to increase both keeping out that one to one ratio so this style of ganache
is best for things like frosting a cake making a whipped ganache frosting or filling a cake once
this cools down it's going to thicken so you can use this once it's completely at room temperature
to fill a cake or frost a cake it even works really well for piping on cupcakes and in that
consistency it's super super rich and decadent but you can also wait until it cools down completely
and whip it into a really light and fluffy whipped ganache frosting which is my favorite use for it
so here i have three different ganache ratios this first one here is a two to one ratio
meaning two parts chocolate to one part cream by weight so i started with four ounces again like in
the demo but then i only used two ounces of cream so when you first mix it this is the consistency
that it's at when it's still warm it's really thick i call it kind of like a pudding consistency
and that's when it's still warm but as you let it cool it's going to thicken into this really really
firm ganache that's scoopable and shapeable which means this is the style that we use
for truffles all right now moving next to it we have our one to one ganache
so this is the one i just demoed i used four ounces of chocolate four ounces of cream
now when you first mix this one together it's a little more like a thick sauce it's not quite
as thick as the other ratio it doesn't feel like a thick pudding it's like a pourable sauce
but then when it cools down to room temperature it becomes much thicker but not quite as thick as
the other it wouldn't really hold its shape if you wanted to form it with your hand like we're going
to do with our truffles but it's thick enough that it would hold its shape if you piped it
and this is also what we will use to make our whipped chocolate ganache frosting
so
and then our last ratio here is a one to two ratio which means one part chocolate to two parts cream
so i started again with four ounces of chocolate but then i used eight ounces of cream now when
you first make this one it is really really thin this is what you would use for something like a
glaze on a cake and this is actually basically what drinking chocolate is that really fancy
hot chocolate you might have had that's basically what this is just a really thin chocolate ganache
when it cools down to room temperature it becomes sort of like that pudding consistency
it definitely thickens up but it's not going to hold its shape if you tried to pipe it or anything
like that this is also the ratio you would want to use if you were going to put ganache in something
like a chocolate fountain because as it's warm it's that really thin pourable consistency
now anytime you make ganache and you're letting it cool down you want to put plastic wrap right
on top of it not over the top of the bowl you want the plastic wrap to actually be
touching the ganache this is going to make sure that there's no kind of like skin or hard bits
forming on top now after you make your ganache you can actually leave this at room temperature for
up to a few days that cream has really been heated up so it's not going to spoil at room temperature
and that's usually what i do with it if i need to use ganache i'll make
it the night before and just leave it at room temperature so it's ready for me the next day
you can store in the refrigerator for much longer but just be aware that as ganache sits in the
refrigerator it definitely gets much firmer and you're going to need to let it come back to room
temperature before you use it okay so making chocolate truffles is so easy all you're going
to do is prepare your two to one ganache ratio and let it sit until it is firm enough to scoop
now i made this ganache yesterday and it has been sitting overnight but if you want it to
move a little quicker you can place it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes or an hour
until it's firm enough to scoop but don't let it sit in there too long or it can get really
really hard and then you're going to need to let it warm up for a little bit before you scoop it
so i'm using a scoop that's probably about one and a half teaspoons you don't want really large scoop
because these are very very rich you just want a little couple bites on your truffle
so i'm just going to scoop these onto my parchment paper here just a few here
and again you really want to make sure that you have the plastic wrap over the top of your ganache
as it's cooling down or you're going to have little hard bits of ganache in your truffles and
we want them to be super silky smooth okay after you have your truffles scooped i like to go ahead
and roll them between the palms of my hands until they're a perfect ball and then you're going to
coat them in your toppings now a very traditional chocolate truffle is just coated in cocoa powder
and that's actually where they get their name from because that makes it look like a truffle
mushroom but you can customize them however you want if you want to make them be a little bit
more fun and vibrant you can coat them in some rainbow sprinkles and because they are at room
temperature and they're not super cold right now they're sticky so it's really easy to get toppings
to stick to the outside of your truffles i also like to do nuts sometime or coconut you can really
do any kind of topping you like these are also a really fun decoration on top of a really decadent
chocolate cake you could do some pretty piped swirls and then set a truffle in between them
or they're delicious all on their own as a little treat i think that people are very impressed with
truffles if you were to bring these to a gathering or give them as a gift for someone it feels very
fancy but really it's very little effort you can also think about flavoring your truffles if you
want if you wanted to add some spices or extracts into your actual ganache mixture that's a really
easy way to flavor them if you wanted to make something kind of like a spicy chocolate you could
add a little bit of cayenne maybe a little pinch of cinnamon that would be delicious i actually
used to work at a really fancy italian restaurant and the pastry chef would add fresh thyme into the
truffles which might sound a little strange but it was actually very delicious so you can play around
with it make it your own if you're not going to eat your truffles right away i do typically put
them in the refrigerator until probably about an hour before serving them this makes sure
that they don't get too sticky or melty before you're ready to eat them i really hope you found
this video helpful if you have any questions you can leave those down in the comments section and
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