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TexasMBA02

TexasMBA02

I'm a home cook, but have been working on perfecting macarons recently.  My question deals with appropriate ratios for ganache fillings based on fat content of the cream and chocolate percentages.  My recent mishap came from a Pierre Herme recipe for coffee ganache.  After making the ganache, I refrigerated it overnight and it was way too thin.  You could pour it.  The ratio for that was:

 

450g 35% White Chocolate

520g Light Whipping Cream (32%-35% fat)

 

So roughly 1:1.15 chocolate to cream.

 

Full disclosure, given availability in the grocery stores, I was using heavy whipping cream which was 36% fat.  If anything, I'd think that it would make it more stable, not less. I'm open to the idea that there was just a misprint or error.  Elsewhere in the cookbook, for similar ganaches there are ratios of 1.12:1.

 

One potential thought was the recipe called for boiling the cream and infusing it with coffee.  I probably got to something closer to a scald.  Is it possible that the boiling would reduce the cream further and make a thicker finished product?  Another possibility is that with more fat content, the cream presumably is less dense and therefore the weight measurements translates into higher volume?  Again, these seem like very minor differences.

 

Then thinking through to other recipes, I was hoping to get some sense of how you can mathematically derive the appropriate ratios.  I will be doing dark chocolate ganaches as well and again his recipes call for light whipping cream, which is challenging to locate now, and a specific 68% chocolate.  I'd like to get some sense of how sensitive the finished product is to deviations from those percentages. For example, if I use a 36% heavy whipping cream and a 70% chocolate, is the final consistency likely to be noticeably different than expectations and how can I anticipate how to adjust the recipe?  My sense is that most of his stuff is overly pretentious and that small deviations likely wouldn't have massive ramifications, but I want to make sure because each ingredient IS a meaningful financial investment.

 

Thank you in advance,

 

 

 

 

TexasMBA02

TexasMBA02

I'm a home cook, but have been working on perfecting macarons recently.  My question deals with appropriate ratios for ganache fillings based on fat content of the cream and chocolate percentages.  My recent mishap came from a Pierre Herme recipe for coffee ganache.  After making the ganache, I refrigerated it overnight and it was way too thin.  You could pour it.  The ratio for that was:

 

450g 35% White Chocolate

520g Light Whipping Cream (32%-35% fat)

 

So roughly 1:1.15 chocolate to cream.

 

Full disclosure, given availability in the grocery stores, I was using heavy whipping cream which was 36% fat.  If anything, I'd think that it would make it more stable, not less. I'm open to the idea that there was just a misprint or error.  Elsewhere in the cookbook, for similar ganaches there are ratios of 1.12:1.

 

One potential thought was the recipe called for boiling the cream and infusing it with coffee.  I probably got to something closer to a scald.  Is it possible that the boiling would reduce the cream further and make a thicker finished product?

 

Then thinking through to other recipes, I was hoping to get some sense of how you can mathematically derive the appropriate ratios.  I will be doing dark chocolate ganaches as well and again his recipes call for light whipping cream, which is challenging to locate now, and a specific 68% chocolate.  I'd like to get some sense of how sensitive the finished product is to deviations from those percentages. For example, if I use a 36% heavy whipping cream and a 70% chocolate, is the final consistency likely to be noticeably different than expectations and how can I anticipate how to adjust the recipe?  My sense is that most of his stuff is overly pretentious and that small deviations likely wouldn't have massive ramifications, but I want to make sure because each ingredient IS a meaningful financial investment.

 

Thank you in advance,

 

 

 

 

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