The BEST Chocolate Ganache EVER
Adapted from Ganache II here
- 16 oz chocolate {roughly 2 2/3 cup}**
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1/2 cup butter
**Let’s talk chocolate for a moment here. I recommend using different types of chocolate to suit your needs. If you’re serving the dessert to a bunch of adults who love dark chocolate, you can create a more bitter tasting ganache by using a higher amount of darker chocolate. {The % on chocolate refers to the amount of cocoa, which is not sweet.} the bitterness is okay because often you’re using the ganache to cover something very sweet, so the two balance each other out. For my ganache I used 10 oz of 60% cocoa chocolate and the remaining 6 oz- which is 1 cup- of regular semi-sweet chocolate chips. Semi-sweet has a 35-50% cocoa ratio. Taste the ganache once it’s done and if you deem it too bitter, you can add in 1/4 cup powdered sugar or 1-2 tablespoons of corn syrup. Note that these additions will change the consistency slightly though, so try to get the sweetness right using the chocolate instead! If you’re new to making gananche, I’d stick with all semi-sweet chocolate.
Instructions:
1. Pour chocolate in a medium sized bowl. Set aside.
2. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add in cream when butter is just about melted.
3. Increase heat slightly and using a whisk, stir constantly, but gently. Heat until mixture just barely comes to a boil.
4. Pour over chocolate in bowl. Begin stirring gently, combining the chocolate with the butter-cream mixture. At first your concoction looks like this:
But after just a minute or two of stirring, all the chocolate is melted and you’ve got a smooth chocolate gananche!
5. Let the mixture sit from 5-15 minutes, depending on how “drippy” you want the chocolate. If you’re putting the ganache on brownies, it can be pretty cool and still spread well. For cakes, you’ll want it to be warmer so that it will run and cover the cake. Feel free to gently pick up your baked goods and tilt them slowly in one direction or another to spread the ganache.
I didn’t want my cake covered completely. I let some drips go to the bottom, whereas other parts I left barely covering the top layer of cake. I let it sit a few more minutes, then I ran more chocolate over, to get a double- layered chocolate look.
For this cake, I just used a box cake mix (altering the recipe to make it taste better, as per instructions here) with a Marshmallow Buttercream Frosting with chopped black cherries mixed in. I topped it with dollops of cream and more cherries on top. Yum.