I’m not good at remembering to take pictures. Actually, I’m really bad at it, especially taking progress pics while I’m in the middle of something. So, here are some before and after pics of my first attempt at white chocolate ganache…
My first time using ganache under fondant was when I took a course at Planet Cake back in February, but the ganache was pre-made for us.
I’m making a cake with swiss meringue buttercream for a friend and I wanted to make sure the cake maintained its shape. It’s been a warm few weeks here and the SMBC does not hold up well in heat. I wanted something to seal the cake in and keep the lines nice and clean.
I had a bit of a hard time finding a recipe for the white chocolate ganache. Every site I checked had different quantities listed. Very frustrating! After much research (too much probably as I ended up going with the first one I found anyhow 😉 ), I settled on a 3:1 ratio of white chocolate to whipping cream (for milk or dark chocolate use a 2:1 ratio).
600g of white chocolate
200ml of whipping cream
I used high quality white chocolate which I chopped up into small chunks and then heated it in the microwave a few times to melt it a bit (10 second intervals, stirring the chocolate in between each). I read that this helps emulsify the chocolate and cream together since they’re both warmed up.
Once it started to melt I brought the cream to a boil and poured it over the chocolate. I let it sit for 3 or 4 minutes and then started to stir slowly from the middle outwards. It wasn’t looking good at first… the cream wasn’t being incorporated with the chocolate, but after some more stirring it came together quite nicely.
Now, here’s where I should have a picture of mixing the cream into the chocolate and then another of the mixture combined. Instead, the next one I remembered to take was this:
The ganache was the perfect consistency (kinda like peanut butter) and was really easy to smooth — pop it in the fridge for a bit and then smooth with a hot scraper.
Here’s the final product ready to be covered in fondant and a link to a great ganache tutorial.
