Just made my first cake with chocolate ganache. It's a practice cake - so really doesn't matter, but...
How do you get the sides smooth? Mine's pretty wavy. I coated the cake with raspberry simply fruit, then poured the ganache over. I've read some posts on here (for advice before I tried it), and some have had trouble with buttercream under it too. Any advice?
I'm not too familiar, but in the past I have used a very smooth layer of buttercream and then froze it before pouring the ganache. That way the ganache adheres quickly and you get a smoother surface- but you do have to work quickly so that you get an even coating all the way around. I have held my cake on a board in my left hand and then poured with my right so I can tilt and get the ganache exactly where I want it- its a bit harder to do with larger cakes though 
Hope that helps!
Hi,
The cake underneath should really be as smooth as you can get it first, and you should let your ganache cool so that it coats the sides a little thicker.
Try crumb coating the cake in buttercream first, and make sure that the ganache is fairly thick before you begin pouring it.
I also put my cake on a cooling rack and have a tray underneath to catch any drips of ganache which you can use to coat the cake again with if you need to.
Thanks guys! I'll try the buttercream first next time. Freezing sounds like a good idea, too.
Can you post your ganache recipe? I tried it last week and although it turned out fine it was way too thick - the chocolate:cream ratio wasnt right for a poured ganache?
Thanks
BTW your cake loos beautiful and puts mine to shame
PS How did you make such even looking chocolate lace work?
My ganache was 8 oz. of ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips and 3/4 cup of heavy cream. Just a note, I didn't chop up the chocolate chips and had to strain it - be sure to chop them up, the finer they are, the smoother it will be.
For the chocolate pieces, I drew a bunch of the triangles on my computer, put them underneath of waxed paper, traced the triangle and then just squiggled the inside in. As long as the outside shape is good, the inside really doesn't matter.
I'm going to try it again tonight - this time with buttercream on the cake first. Searching for a good dark chocolate buttercream recipe right now. Wish me luck!
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