Can I disolve instant coffee or expresso powder in my heavy cream to make a mocha ganache? Has anyone ever tried this? Did it work?

I've never tried it, but my mouth started watering as soon as I read the title of the thread! Go for it!

Its 38 Celcius here and all I can think about in my non air conditioned house is caking. As soon as this heat wave breaks I'm going to fill my freezer with cake so I have some on hand for times like this. AND the first bit of decorating I'm going to do is to make me some mocha ganache. Will let you know how it turns out.

That's definitely something to try. Let me tell ya, I tried that the other week... I put a little bit of coffee flavored oil at a time in my ganache, ended up using a LOT, with still lackluster results. Obviously, most of us use coffee in our chocolate cake recipes to enhance the chocolate, so it would follow (though i know it bakes out) that it would be kinda hard to get the coffee to stand out in such a rich chocolate base, since coffee flavor enhances chocolate flavor. Ack! I totally think dissolving granules in the cream, then adding flavor to the finished ganache has a good chance of success. You can do it!

Along the same lines: when I make candy clay I usually heat the corn syrup before adding it to the melted chocolate/candy melts. I wonder if I could melt instant coffee into the syrup for a mocha or (with plain vanilla candy melts) coffee flavored candy clay?

I said coffee, not coffee flavor... Coffee is used to enhance a chocolate cake recipe, but the cake doesn't have a coffee taste after baking. Make sense?

Yup

Coffee flavor most definitely does not bake out of a cake or anything when added properly.

In the ganache, yes you can use a quality espresso powder, but I would add some Kahlua also for a bigger punch. Good espresso powder, such as Medaglia D'oro, will perfectly dissolve, no matter how much you use and the taste is perfect for desserts.