Caramel ganache emulsion broke

[gfron1]

The start of chocolate season for me is always so painful. Today, I made a caramel (sugar and glucose), added my hot cream and the caramel was just right. Let it cool a bit and poured over my chocolate and stirred by hand - fine but a bit thick. I saw some oil already at this stage so I threw it in my food processor to try and bring the emulsion back together. It broke really bad. I warmed it with my heat gun thinking that would do the trick but it got worse. Now I'm cooling it to try again.

 

Where did I go wrong?

[ChocoMom]

Hey Gfron,

I can't imagine chocolate season being painful!  Your descriptions and pics are absolutely stunning every time!  =)

 

This is just a guess..... The only thing that comes to mind with the emulsion breaking, is perhaps either a too cool or too hot caramel.  Its maddening when that happens, isn't it?!  I wonder if you let it cool down completely, then add in a bit more cream, and slowly re-warm it in either a warm oven, or a double boiler, if that might bring it all back together.  If that doesn't work, I'd say swirl it around in some brownies and make a devilishly rich dessert treat. 

 

I had the opposite issue when I did passionfruit caramels Sunday night. Never had added sorbitol before, and after pondering what might happen, I decided to add in a teensy pinch to the syrup.   Dang! It firmed up so quick (and a little too well), I had to re-warm it just to be able to work with it. 

The remains are now a tasty alternative to a Tootsie Roll.

 

I hope it comes back together for you!

-Andrea

[Kerry Beal]

Chocolot - where are you?

[Chocolot]

I'm here but no great wisdom:). It sounds like you have too much fat in the recipe. I made a pipable caramel a bit ago and poured into piping bags and sealed. Next day, fat had congealed all over inside the bag. Nasty!! I heated it up and added a lot of glucose. Seemed to work. Next time I didn't add much butter at the end, and it was fine.

[gfron1]

It was a new recipe so I'll back off on the butter next time

[Jim D.]

I too have had occasional troubles with caramel breaking, but I am speaking of caramel without chocolate.  Last time I tried every trick in the book, and finally gave up and put it all in a sieve.  The separated butter dripped out, and the caramel was completely usable.  There's no ready explanation.  William Curley's wonderful orange balsamic caramel calls for a huge amount of butter at the end, and I have never had it break.  With the batch described earlier, there was relatively little butter.

 

But since you are making a caramel with chocolate, there is always the increased danger of having it separate.  My experience follows what Chocolot said, "too much fat."  You could try the trick of slowly mixing in (with immersion blender) some skim milk or even water to bring back the emulsion.  You might also try not using the "pour hot caramel over chocolate" method but instead melting the chocolate and getting it and the caramel to approximately the same temperature, then mixing them with an immersion blender.  This avoids the shock to the chocolate, and it's what I do with any ganache involving white chocolate, which seems easily "shockable."