Flavored Ganaches (Fruit, herb, spice, etc)

[lapin d'or]

"For 12 oz of dark chocolate...54%...it's all I have at this point...I used 1 tablespoon of pepper corns and then ground them. I could have used more I think. Next time..."

Many thanks Darienne, I will give it a go

[adey73]

Tri, you made ganache with 70% smoked tom-paste?

Did it taste ok? (seriously)

[Tri2Cook]

Yeah, I smoked some fresh tomatoes, pureed them, filtered the puree to remove excess water, infused cream with lemon thyme and used it along with some glucose and butter to make a ganache with 70% chocolate. I didn't use it for truffles though, I used it with olive oil cake. It was good but not so much a vehicle for the tomato, it was pushed to the background by the smoke and chocolate. I'm thinking of doing it again and maybe pairing it with a tomato pate de fruit or agar gel or something.

[Darienne]

Didn't know whether to ask in this thread or the 'matcha' thread.

I can't seem to find a recipe for matcha flavored ganache. I know I read about one somewhere....

Roughly how much matcha powder would you use for say 9 oz of chocolate?

Thanks.

[tammylc]

We've got some nice tarragon coming up in the herb garden, so I thought it would be a good flavoring for some truffles I need to make for a dinner party. I looked up the Tarragon-Grapefruit recipe from Recchiuti's Chocolate Obsession, and note that he calls for dehydrating the tarragon before infusing it in the cream. Then has you add the dehydrated tarragon to boiling cream, cool to room temperature and then refrigerated overnight (or up to 3 days).

This all seems awfully elaborate! Has anyone make a tarragon ganache before? Is the dehydration step necessary to remove some bitter volatiles? Usually when i infuse cream with herbs, I just use fresh, steep for 5 or 10 minutes, and proceed.

[mkayahara]

I've never made a tarragon ganache before, but I did dehydrate a bunch of tarragon when I did a dish from the Alinea cookbook. To my palate, fresh tarragon has a "green" note that's not present once it's dehydrated. The anise flavour is also stronger in the dehydrated product.

Although it doesn't help you make use of the tarragon in your garden, I imagine you could just use commercial dried tarragon... but only if it's from a really good source. I was impressed by the strength and quality of flavour that came from drying my own.

[RWood]

In Michael Recchiutti's book, I think he says he dries the herbs to remove the moisture. I've never done that either. I have made a tarragon ganache that I used with blood oranges for a tart. I just used fresh, and it came out very nice. You could definitely tell it was tarragon. I guess it depends on how much work you want to put into it.

[Kerry Beal]

If I recall correctly you can dry herbs quickly in the microwave. Might be interesting to do a half batch each with the dried vs the non dried and see if you detect any difference.

[tammylc]

I have access to a dehydrator, so it's not that big of a deal to do the dehydration step. Just seemed extraneous. But on the strength of Rwood's experience, I think I'll try my regular method this time around, especially if I'm going to go to the bother of making the candied grapefruit peel!

[Tri2Cook]

Dredging this from the depths to ask if anybody has made Wybauw's blueberry ganache and if so, how well does the blueberry stand out in it? I also have the following from one of the Boiron PDFs...

500 g blueberry puree
370 g dark chocolate 60%
735 g milk chocolate 38%
175 g butter
80 g sorbitol
65 g invert sugar
65 g glucose

I'm thinking about a game plan for the local blueberry festival (which isn't until late July/early August so I have lots of time to work on it) and I'm fine with experimenting (still have about 6 or 7 gallons of the local wild blueberries in the freezer from last summer) but I figured if anybody here is already familiar with these recipes, it would save me some trouble. I'm completely open to other suggestions as well. Filling with a layer of blueberry jam (homemade from the local berries) and a layer of the blueberry ganache seems like it might be a good option but I'm kinda hoping for a ganache that's blueberry enough to not need that.

[Jim D.]

I experimented last summer with a blueberry ganache (my own recipe, not either of the recipes you mention).  I already suspected that blueberries would be too subtle to come through the flavors of dark or milk chocolate, so I used white, and I even reduced the blueberries by half to concentrate the flavor.  Alas, no substantial blueberry flavor could be tasted.  The ganache had a great color, so my mind tried hard to taste blueberry, but I could not.  Fortunately I was able to use all the leftover blueberries I had reduced and then strained to make a nice gelato (some crème de cassis helped the flavor).

 

A blueberry pate de fruit might turn out more flavorful, and your idea of a blueberry jam might work.  The jam could be used in a butter ganache, so you could have one layer of pate de fruit and another of a blueberry butter ganache.

[pastrygirl]

I have not tried blueberry ganache but like to add a little lime juice to most of my other sweet blueberry things.  Depending on the variety, blueberries can be kind of insipid and lime perks them up.

[Lisa Shock]

I have found that cooking blueberries can decrease their flavor. I too like adding lime to blueberry items. I suspect that the path to success may lie in infusing certain berries in grain alcohol, to make an extract, rather than using puree.

[Tri2Cook]

22 minutes ago, Jim D. said:

I experimented last summer with a blueberry ganache (my own recipe, not either of the recipes you mention).  I already suspected that blueberries would be too subtle to come through the flavors of dark or milk chocolate, so I used white, and I even reduced the blueberries by half to concentrate the flavor.  Alas, no substantial blueberry flavor could be tasted.  The ganache had a great color, so my mind tried hard to taste blueberry, but I could not.

I had a feeling that might be the case. The flavor in the local wild berries is amazing but I wasn't confident it would stand up to the chocolate to berry ratio in a ganache. I knew somebody here would have experience with it, so now I know. Thanks!