Hi all, I was wondering if someone out there in wonderful cake baking land can help me with chocolate ganache. I am making a cake with chocolate ganache for the first time and wanted to know any little tricks and secrets. Like can you pipe chocolate ganache on top of the ganache icing? I have made chocolate ganache in the past (very delicious) but I found it to be a little runny. How do you thicken it up to pipe with tips? Any help will be much appreciated! Thanks in advance.
Tiffany

As it sets it gets thick like frosting. I guess if you wanted to speed the process you could throw it in the fridge. Some people like to whip it!!! and yes i believe once it firms you can pipe with it.

I've cooled it, then whipped it and piped with it. Just don't whip it too stiff.

When whipping the ganache, do you whip with a wire whisk or in a mixer?

Can you make ganache with milk chocolate????? I tried making a batch with some 70 % bitter chocolate I have but I can't afford to keep using it to experiment. It is pretty expensive. Also my ganache looked like a lump of very wet, slimy poo...... tasted great just looked nasty. It didnt get very stiff even after a good bit of whipping. I used whipping cream instead of heavy cream cuz thats what was in the house. Could the cream have made the difference?

I use my KA to whip it.
Yes, you can use Milk chocolate.
I use whipping cream for mine, as far as I understand whipping cream is heavy cream. In fact, the brand I buy says "Heavy Whipping Cream" on the carton.

To whip it, it needs to be cooled in order to acheive the whipped ganache.

There are two kinds of whipping cream I can buy here--whipping cream, and heavy whipping cream. The heavy stuff works better for ganache because of its higher fat content.

Whip it until it's lighter in color and it pipes very nicely.

Oh ok. I'll try the heavy cream next time. I can get all types of cream here... heavy cream, whipping cream, special cooking cream and the list goes on. Should I refrigerate the ganache for a bit and then take it back out to whip it. I live in the Caribbean so "room temp" and "cool" aren't standard.

Note: if you use milk chocolate, you must use less cream to get the same consistency!

What's the best ratio of chocolate to cream if I'm using milk chocolate?

What about white chocolate?

If you use these proportions your semi sweet ganache pipes beautifully and has texture of truffles, but must refrigerate for at least 1 hour before piping
8 oz (240ml) cream
1 tbls butter (optional but makes it stay really shiny even after refrigerating)
1 oz sugar
12 oz (340 g)chocolate
Break chocolate into 1/2 oz pieces and place in stainless steel bowl
Heat cream, butter and sugar to boiling. Pour over chocolate and let stand 5 minutes. Stir from center out until smooth. After refrigerating then fill your piping bag

White chocolate use nearly double the chocolate to cream
240 ml cream
455 g white chocolate

Never made milk choclate but I believe it should be somewhere between the semi and white proportions

awesome.. thanks

Cheftaz- I used your ganache recipe yesterday and liked it much better than the recipe I'd been using. Adding the butter really did help keep it shiny! And it piped beautifully after I refrigerated it for a while.
Thanks for sharing!

Here's the cake I made:

Wow, that turned out beautifully!!! Makes me wanna try it!

Very nice job HollyPJ. I am glad I could help

That cake is beautiful!!!!

Thank you for sharing your recipe.

Very beautiful cake Holly!

WOW! That cake is beautiful! Looks so YUMMY!

How did you do those roses? Did you use the same stuff? Very nice cake!

jenni

The roses are molded from Tootsie Rolls!
I got the idea from this site.

Beautiful cake! Where did you find the tootsie roll instructions for the roses? They are beautiful. Wonderful job!