I'm using rylan's recipe 2:1 chocolate to cream recipe. I made it last night and this is the first time I've ever made it witth bittersweet chocolate istead of semisweet. I let it sit overnight and this morning It is really hard and really grainy. is there a way to save it or should I start over? I'm running out of time this cake has to be delivered in 5 hours!

If it's for a paying order I'd make it over. I've never had any to turn out grainy but I've never used bittersweet chocolate either. Good luck .

I rarely use anything BUT bittersweet chocolate and mine has never come out grainy. It DOES firm up more than milk chocolate ganache, but it still always soft enough to whip it after it's come to room temp. However if you were using a 2:1 ratio that would explain why it was "really" hard. I use 1:1 for bittersweet. I even whipped it and piped a basketweave with it once, although I had to continually warm the bag because it DOES get so firm...at only 1:1 ratio !

The grainy issue is something else entirely. Unless you meant that the chocolate bits didn't melt up all the way, in which case you could save your ganache by gently remelting it (even adding more cream at the ratio you were using). Truly "grainy" ganache usually occurs when you over-agitate it and basically "break" the ganache...and most sites I've said say that it is difficult to rescue.

Of course you posted at 10am this morning so you have probably solved this problem by now!

I've never tried bittersweet.

If it gets too firm, just microwave it in 8 second intervals until desired consistency.

As for it being grainy, did you cover the ganache container? There was probably some type of condensation that made the chocolate that way. If not, maybe it wasn't mixed very well until smooth. I'm sorry you are having this problem.

id say melt it a bit for the hardness. as with the grainy issue. if had that a few times,. i find it happens if you havnt mixed enough. you need to REALLY mix that sucker up! its still fixable, i think anyway, just slowly melt it back down and mix mix mix!

thanks for all of the responses! I was able to save it by micorwaving at 50% power for 15 seconds and mixing it up better. I'm not sure what the overall issue was, different chocolate than I was used to, I think I may have boiled the cream too long, I dont think I waited long enough before mixing it and didn't allow the chocolate to melt all the way. I placed a paper towel over the top to keep dust out, but no water got into it overnight. lucky I was able to get it salvagable enough for the cake and it all worked out!