I have heard so much about ganache, truffle, marzipan, and sugarpaste? Could somebody please tell me what all this is and how it is suppost to be used and is it homemade or something that is premade?

Im so lost when I see all these words and havent figured out what any of it is yet. I see under the gallery "sugarpaste/marzipan" that there are some gorgeous flowers. would love to know what all this stuff is.

Thanks,

Jennifer

well I can help you out with some of the question. ganache is the chocolate drizzled on top of the cakes....truffles are stuffed like almost a fudge texted chocolate...and marzipan is kinda like fondant in that you can cover the cake with it or make figures out of it...not sure on the sugarpaste...but yes you can make it all at home/ and I'm not sure if you can buy the marzipan, but the other i would bet anything you could buy somewhere if you really didn't want to make it at home. I know i'm not much help I'm never really worked with any of it except the ganache...so I hope that someone could give us both a bit more info.

Hi There is a food encyclopedia an food network .com I've found every term I need to know on there Hope that helps

Ganache is a mixture of heavy cream and chocolate heated together then it can be poured over a cake like a frosting or you can let it firm up and whip it and use it for piping or filling or if you roll it into balls you then have truffles which can be rolled in coco powder or powder sugar or nut or dipped in chocolate you can also use extracts to flavour the ganache. marzipan is made with almonds and can be used for decorating or fillings. as for sugarpaste I have no idea. hope this helps some.

Okay.. I'll take a stab at it..

Ganache is made by adding chocolate to hot cream. Sometimes people add a little butter and/or corn syrup to it to make it nice and shiney. You take your cream and bring it just to a boil in a sauce pan. Then you take a heat proof bowl with your chocolate (which has been chopped up) in it and pour the hot cream over the chocolate. let it sit for 5 minutes and then stir it up until it's well incorpotated. You can take this mixture when it has cooled a little and dip things into it (like strawberries or whatever you find lying around) or you can pour it over a cake. If you let it cool completely you can use it like any old frosting and frost and/or fill a cake with it. If you let it cool in the fridge it will become very firm and you can scoop it and eat it.. or form balls with it which is what a truffle is (a chocolate one anyway.. there are fungi called truffles and the chocolate dessert is named after them becuse they sort of resemble one). There are many different ways to make ganache.. the most common is equal amounts by volume of cream and chocolate. if you add more cream your ganache will be thinner and if you add less cream it will be more firm.

Marzipan is like fondant but it is made with bitter almonds and is used a lot in European cake decorating.. usually over a fruitcake and under fondant. You can mold things with it and such as well.

Sugarpaste is a broad term used to describe fondant and gumpaste and marzipan and things like that. Basically anything made from sugar that you can mold with.

Thanks for the information yall..i really appreciate it..that helped a bunch..been over here scratchin my head tryin to figure out what all this stuff was for a long time but just never asked...Thanks again

I think the easiest way to go about all of that is if you just google each one and start clicking on links till you learn all about it.