Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Just wondering if using a milk chocolate ganache will work for the teddy bear cake? Will it set firmly enough to hold the structure? I was going to do the teddy for my own birthday (!) but now there will be quite a few children coming to help eat it and was thinking that milk chocolate might be better for them.

hiya, Ive just made it with milk chocolate this weekend and it was absolutely fine. Rather than using 900g of choc to the 600ml cream, i added an extra 100ml of chocolate and it has set lovely. I covered the body and legs first before putting the head on top and then ganached the head separately.
Hope that helps! P.S. If you have lots of kids coming, you might want to do a few extra bumblebees, they were by far the most favourite part of the cake with my daughters friends!!!!!

hiya i agree if kiddies are going to eat it the dark chocolate ganache might be a little bit rich. i remember paul saying on the tutorial for making white chocolate ganache that when making ganache with milk or white chocolate always add an extra handful of chocolate for luck because the coco content isn’t as high and will help the chocolate to set.. although milk and white chocolate take a lot longer to set so keep that in mind 🙂

Was going to do more chocolate to cream than normal but just wondering if it will be ok with such a carved/stacked cake, as opposed to just a normal round?

Try and aim for milk chocolate with 40 – 45% cocoa solids. Milk, and white chocolate doesn’t set as firm and may need to be refrigerated to help it along. Adding extra chocolate or reducing the amount of cream will also make milk chocolate ganache firmer. It is absolutely fine for carved and stacked cakes, pop the cake in the fridge to allow each layer of ganache set before icing. x

Glad it all turned out good mummykare, great feed back! x