Monday, April 9, 2012

(Blue) White Chocolate Ganache

Chocolate ganache is typically made from pouring warm cream onto room temperature (and good quality, please!) dark chocolate. Unfortunately for this recipe, the silky, glossy, utterly drinkable result of this confectionery alloy is decidedly brown. And as my Pantone-savvy readers know, brown is not easily coaxed into blue. So? Enter white chocolate ganache.

Now, a word of caution: white chocolate (because it's not "true" chocolate) does not behave like dark or even milk chocolate. High temperatures and overmixing are extremely offensive to Madame la Blanc, so you'll have to find your inner patience. You can, in theory, nuke the chocolate, but I wouldn't, because you have so little control over the process. But if you're feeling adventurous, get on wit yo' bad self.

No recipe credits here; I learned to make ganache when working at a fabulous but now sadly out of business restaurant called ConFusion in my hometown.




White Chocolate Ganache, Dyed Royal Blue, fo' Drizzle
Pictured here on Basic White Cake with Vanilla Buttercream

Ingredients:
12 ounces good quality white chocolate
1/2 cup heavy cream




Break up chocolate into pieces approximately the size of a dime. The smaller the pieces, the faster they melt. The faster they melt, the longer the cream stays warm. And I'm here to tell you, you just can't melt chocolate with cold milk. I know. It defies physics. But them's the rules.
Put cream in a sauce pan, and heat until steam rises from the surface and small bubbles appear around the edge of the pan.
Pour warmed cream over the broken chocolate.



 Stir hot milk and chocolate together until chocolate is completely melted, and mixture is smooth.

If all yer wantin' is something to drizzle on something else (strawberries? yet more chocolate??) then you're done now! Or come with me and dye some goo...






 I generally need some kind of color reference when I'm trying for a specific frosting hue. Most colors I want can be found in my house. Hey, guess what I used in this case? Hint: it's not my hand...
 The hardest part about ganache, as far as I'm concerned, is getting it to juuuuuust the right temperature for drizzling. As with everything, I'd counsel you to do a "test drizzle" (highly technical term) before you go dumping it all over your cake. What you're going for is a decadent coating, not a horror poster for I Know What You Did Last Summer, "K."










So that's the whole project! In its 3-part, torn apart, paper heart, from the start entirety. I so appreciate y'all stopping by and taking a look. And I sure hope something I've said has helped out on one of your projects! Too-da-loo!





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