Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hello!! I live in America and I have struggled with ganache… never getting a consistent outcome. I recently read a blog of yours where this statement was mentioned, “For the purpose of this blog we will only be discussing basic ganache and will not include products such as butter, fruit puree, milk, water, single or whipping cream ganaches. These have additional challenges which cannot be covered here.” You mention a product called double cream, I believe.. I am not sure what that is.. I have been using Whipping cream… am I making a HUGE mistake? Thanks so much!!

Liz

I live in Canada and there is no double cream sold here. However, I always used whipping cream and my ganache turns out perfectly every time! With chocolate ganache I use about 2:1 ratio chocolate to cream, and with white chocolate, I use slightly less cream. I also use only Lindt chocolate. Pricey but outcome is very favourable and consistent.

Hi Liz

Double cream is the same as your heavy cream or any cream with 36% fat or more. If your whipping cream has 36% fat that’s just fine. Here is a table of what double cream is known as in different countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cream

I don’t think you are doing anything wrong. As you have read in my blog, ganache can be made with any type of liquid. However, ganache made with heavy cream or butter or another type of fat will have a better shelf life than if made with a product containing less fat, fruit purees,milk, other products which contain more water than fat or water. There is a technical term called active water, the higher the active water the poorer the keeping properties of ganache. The basic ganache discussed in my blog has a high fat, low water content so has good keeping properties as the active or available water is low.
You haven’t mentioned the percentage of cocoa solids contained in the chocolate which you are using. Try a dark chocolate with 50% cocoa solids. A higher percentage can be used but it is not to everyone’s taste. For milk chocolate try for 42 – 45% and white chocolate 26 -29 %. On the whole, ganache can be made with any chocolate which you enjoy eating. If you are having problems with a grainy or oily ganache it may be that you are overmixing the emulsion. When you pour the boiled cream over the chocolate allow it to penetrate the chocolate for a minute then gently rotate the bowl so all the chocolate is covered with the hot cream. When you begin stirring, start from the middle of the bowl and work outward gently until cream and chocolate are mixed through completely. Ganache will become oily if vigerously stirred or overheated in the microwave. If your ganache splits and curdles there is a fix and further touble shooting information here:
http://www.cakeflix.com/questions?s=oily+ganache

I hope this has helped. Don’t be put off making ganache, most of the time it is only the mixing technique which messes it up. Other things to avoid is getting any water or steam into the ganache, this will make ganache seize and appear grainy and difficult to work. Once ganache is made cover the surface with saran wrap/cling film to prevent it from forming a crust. When warming ganache in the microwave use low or medium heat for 10 second intervals and gently stir after each warming so heat is evenly distributed throughout the emulsion.

@ aud, thank you so much for your input. Your comment is most helpful and will be referred to time and again! x