Fruit Ganache

[Lior]

I don't know if any of you have used this chart - just click on "chocolate makers" and you get this chart.

1. What is the difference between the first set of "fruit ganaches" and "chocolate molded sweets" as at the END both say to pour into the frame.

I also noticed that no white choc is included and in the chocolate molded sweets-only milk choc is used. Also quite a lot of sugars are incorporated- Why different ones and so much? I see no cream is used either... but only butter.

The "praline for molding and cutting" is intriguing as it uses gianduja, hazelnut paste and praline.

Any thoughts or comments?

Thanks

Edited October 7, 2009 by Lior (log)

[John DePaula]

I loaded up the French version and compared the two; turns out it's just a translation error.

The first set, "fruit ganaches," are for slabbing. The second set, "Chocolate Molded Sweets," are for molded bonbons.

Here's a link to the French language version: Boiron Chocolatier PDF.

Hope this helps.

Edited October 7, 2009 by John DePaula (log)

[mostlylana]

Ilana,

I did quite a few experiments with fruit ganache and just out of experimenting, found that a butter based ganache works best. It was later that I noticed in one of the big boy books that all of their fruit based ganache used butter but there was no explanation of this. My own deduction is that you can use more fruit puree when no cream is used and therefore get a better flavour. The butter provides the fat. Milk chocolate is used to 'soften' (especially with acidic fruits) and it gives the illusion that cream has been used. I wish I had that chart BEFORE I did all my experiments and came to the exact same conclusion as they did: Fruit puree + butter and milk + dark chocolate.

[Lior]

Got it- thanks John and Lana. Maybe now my mango will be better!! I seem to have realized that I often miss/ignore the obvious at times. What I should pick up right away can take me 2 years to realize!!

I get into all the nitty gritty and ignore important basics-oof!

[cmflick]

I have made the Boiron mango and guava ganaches for molding quite a few times and think that they are quite excellent. They have also been very popular with people that get chocolates from me. But these are the ones that are made with white chocolate. The fruit flavors come through very strongly and you really can't taste the white chocolate. The ones that I made came from Boiron's Journal du Fruit from Autumn 2006 at this web site. Incidentally, they also make an excellent macaron filling.

[gap]

Passionfruit ganache without cream is another great one (use milk chocolate)

[Lior]

thanks. I will try the mango and passion fruit!

[nanefy]

Hey Guys,

 

I realise that there are probably one million and one topics/threads/conversations on ganache on here and I've scoured the site looking for an answer, but haven't found anything that specifically covers this topic.

 

So, I'm no chocolate/ganache expert by any means, but I just recently discovered fruit ganache - I had no idea I could make ganache with literally fruit puree and chocolate....no cream!

 

So I made a bunch of fruit ganaches to fill some macarons that I made, and they were fab, however I also want to use them in my cakes (wedding/birthday cakes).  My problem is that once my cakes are filled, they get covered in a layer of standard white, milk or dark ganache and then they don't go back in the fridge - they are kept at room temperature until they are served.

 

My question is about shelf stability.  I know that my standard recipes for milk, white and dark chocolate ganache are absolutely fine at room temperature for a good long time, but what about Fruit Ganache??

 

To give you guys an idea of what I am using, the recipe I used was equal weights of chocolate to fruit puree - I melted the chocolate over a bain marie and heated the fruit puree until hot, but not boiling, then combined both together.  At these ratios, the firmness was probably slightly softer than I would prefer, so I do intend on decreasing the fruit puree amount, but it was still lovely.

 

I understand this might not be an easy question to answer, having read about water activity and how it varies depending on water and fat content etc, but any information you guys have would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Jo.

[Kerry Beal]

You really would need to measure the water activity to estimate the safety.  Or do a study where you set pieces aside and look at them every couple of days to see when they get mouldy.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Kerry Beal (log)

[lesliec]

Hi Jo.

 

This topic may have some relevant information for you - there's some discussion of the shelf life of fruit ganaches, anyway.

[Lior]

You may want to research water based ganaches. In general, the idea I think, is to make a "cream" from water and oil. The water in the puree, oil and the fruit. SO I guess you need to experiment or figure out water content. Good luck.

[Kerry Beal]

Further to Lior's post - if you have a cream based ganache that has a decent shelf life - replace 65% of the cream (by weight) with puree and 35% of the cream (by weight) with a neutral oil.  It will look  a little different as it's setting up - but it will have the same aW as your original recipe (or perhaps a bit lower because puree is not 100% water though we calculate as if it is).  

[Jim D.]

Further to Lior's post - if you have a cream based ganache that has a decent shelf life - replace 65% of the cream (by weight) with puree and 35% of the cream (by weight) with a neutral oil.  It will look  a little different as it's setting up - but it will have the same aW as your original recipe (or perhaps a bit lower because puree is not 100% water though we calculate as if it is).  

Kerry,

But how would it taste?  I can't quite imagine that replacing the dairy taste of cream with oil would be palatable.  What about using butter--or would that overwhelm the purée's taste?  I know that butter ganaches often end up with a weak fruit taste.

[Kerry Beal]

They taste fine - I do it all the time with wine or purees.  As long as you pick a neutral oil you don't even taste it.

[jauhe]

I've been reading through Greweling's book, and many of the ganache recipes have some kind of fruit flavoring. I'm trying to figure out how substitutions would work, as I play with ingredients I have available where I live. Would something like this be roughly accurate as equivalents in similar quantities?

 

1. Fruit puree, reduced by 3/4
2. Fruit juice concentrate, reduced by half
3. Jam, not reduced
4. Henry & Henry Redi-Pak filling, not reduced (I have easier access to these than some types of fruit, so wanted to experiment with them)

[Kerry Beal]

The pastry fillings can be added without reduction - similar to jam. 

 

Fruit juice even reduced is still lots of free water.

 

 

[pastrygirl]

Not sure if they ship out of the US, but this company has good fruit juice concentrates:

https://www.fruitfast.com/fruitconcentrates.

 

I'm using their raspberry, cherry, and cranberry right now, they are intensely fruity with no pulp.  I also like Perfect Puree passion fruit concentrate.  Many frozen purees are not concentrated.

 

Pure citrus oils can also be useful.

 

As for substitutions, depends on what the recipe originally calls for.

[jauhe]

Those look great, I'll look into them.

 

And good point on the water content. What about adding a fruit layer to a bonbon (as opposed to mixing with ganache) in terms of shelf life? I assume reduced juice or puree wouldn't work directly, but maybe a jam or those Henry & Henry fillings would?

[Kerry Beal]

the fruit layer is best if it's a PDF or jam I find - I've seen purees even cooked with sugar ferment and blow the top off the bonbons. 

[pastrygirl]

Also consider Valrhona's Inspirations.  The raspberry and yuzu are fantastic, strawberry less intense/tart, haven't tried the passion fruit.

 

Freeze dried fruit powders, too.

Edited September 4, 2023 by pastrygirl (log)

[jauhe]

26 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

the fruit layer is best if it's a PDF or jam I find - I've seen purees even cooked with sugar ferment and blow the top off the bonbons. 

 

Wow!

 

5 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:

Also consider Valrhona's Inspirations.  The raspberry and yuzu are fantastic, strawberry less intense/tart, haven't tried the passion fruit.

 

Freeze dried fruit powders, too.

 

Very interesting, how would you use the freeze dried powders? Just adding to the cream when making the ganache? How does the flavor compare to jams and purees and such?

[Jim D.]

2 hours ago, jauhe said:

Those look great, I'll look into them.

 

And good point on the water content. What about adding a fruit layer to a bonbon (as opposed to mixing with ganache) in terms of shelf life? I assume reduced juice or puree wouldn't work directly, but maybe a jam or those Henry & Henry fillings would?

 

PDFs have more water content than one would expect (or so I found).  I played around with sugars other than sucrose and managed to decrease the Aw reading to an acceptable level (sorbitol was the main part of the solution because it adds a lot of bulk but not so much sweetness).  In cases where there is a dried version of the fruit being used, I also added some ground-up dried fruit as part of the quantity of purée called for.  And I use Pomona's pectin because it requires much less cooking and therefore produces less flavor loss.  Coincidentally just yesterday I made a pineapple PDF (a Kirsten Tibballs recipe) with the traditional method (citrus pectin, all sucrose).  I didn't bother measuring the Aw becauseI was dismayed at the dullness in the flavor--had to add some Amoretti natural pineapple flavoring to get that pineapple punch.  So I started all over making it with Pomona's pectin.  Then I had a side-by-side comparison that @Kerry Bealmight have approved of, and there was no question the second one was much better.  I still used the wonderful Amoretti flavoring, but it was the winner even without that.  As an aside, Kirsten calls for a little chili (I used habañero), which is a great addition to pineapple.

[pastrygirl]

59 minutes ago, jauhe said:

how would you use the freeze dried powders? Just adding to the cream when making the ganache?

How does the flavor compare to jams and purees and such?

 

Yes.  Or fall down the rabbit hole of getting a melanger and making your own fruit chocolates ...

 

Jams are sweetened and have a cooked flavor.  Not necessarily bad.

 

Also add regular grocery store frozen fruit juice concentrates to the list.  It doesn't have to be an expensive niche ingredient!

[Jim D.]

16 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:

Also add regular grocery store frozen fruit juice concentrates to the list.  It doesn't have to be an expensive niche ingredient!

 

Definitely.  Peter Greweling even calls for using orange juice concentrate (a bit of a cooked taste, but then in some recipes he calls for cooking the unconcentrated juice down).  Apple juice concentrate is great.  I use it for my PDF.

[Saltychoc]

On 9/4/2023 at 1:00 PM, Jim D. said:

 

Definitely.  Peter Greweling even calls for using orange juice concentrate (a bit of a cooked taste, but then in some recipes he calls for cooking the unconcentrated juice down).  Apple juice concentrate is great.  I use it for my PDF.

 

Which apple juice concentrate do you use? I used a boiled cider syrup last year and I keep having to add more which resulted in a pretty short shelf life. I'm getting a massive amount of apples later this week, I've made apple butter in the past but it's very time consuming.