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Pastry Ganache - Fillings and Glazes


Malawry

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Marblizing fondant is a technique of adding color. As you aren't familiar with this, I assume then that you have never worked with fondant. If that's so, you won't want to attempt something like this on your first experience. You have to have a good knowledge/experience in handling fondant to begin with, before attempting something like trying to create specifac marble patterns/colors.

Thanks, my only fondant experience is with the poured variety, not the rolled variety (I have made colored marzipan, both in sheets and in shapes, before, but have never marblized or shaded it.)

I have 3 months before this cake needs to be made, so maybe I can at least get some rolled fondant experience under my belt, and experiment. Worst case scenario, I never quite get it to where I need it, and I just use another lesser method. :wink:

"Give me 8 hours, 3 people, wine, conversation and natural ingredients and I'll give you one of the best nights in your life. Outside of this forum - there would be no takers."- Wine_Dad, egullet.org

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Yeah, the jury's still out as to the origin of the sheen on the cake...

personally, I'd take it with or without the sheen, but hey this is a good excuse for me to try my hand at fondant (well rolled fondant). I've been looking up other examples of fondant cakes on the web, and I'm kicking myself for not having learning it sooner... what people are doing with this stuff is astonishing! I've never seen such true colors before.

"Give me 8 hours, 3 people, wine, conversation and natural ingredients and I'll give you one of the best nights in your life. Outside of this forum - there would be no takers."- Wine_Dad, egullet.org

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  • 4 weeks later...

Well, last week I found out the name of the source of this cake: Hansen's Bakery in Los Angeles. Turns out it's very very popular for producing just about any custom cake imaginable...

And so my search has concluded, and the official answer IS: Rolled Fondant, marbleized!

A year's supply of Turtle Wax goes to the EGullies that gave the correct answer! :biggrin:

I am currently learning basic rolled fondant as a result (hey I might even display a cake with it at Xmas) and god willing, I may produce something darned close to the aforementioned "Trek" cake in February. I'll post the results!

"Give me 8 hours, 3 people, wine, conversation and natural ingredients and I'll give you one of the best nights in your life. Outside of this forum - there would be no takers."- Wine_Dad, egullet.org

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  • 4 weeks later...

Over the past few weeks, I've started working with prefab rolled fondant and making batches of my own. Getting results surprisingly similar to the cake I'm trying to reproduce. The streaks come naturally when you drop a teaspoon of the coloring in the fondant and knead it in long braiding strokes. Beautiful! I'm also using the sample batches to learn simple shapes... ribbons, roses, braids.

I'll be posting the results of the Big Fat Geek Foodfest and all its spacey goodness in Mid-February! Thanks everyone!

"Give me 8 hours, 3 people, wine, conversation and natural ingredients and I'll give you one of the best nights in your life. Outside of this forum - there would be no takers."- Wine_Dad, egullet.org

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  • 2 months later...

Hi everyone, I'm hoping to tap the wonderful baking minds of everyone here and get some info/help. I will be making a cake for my friends wedding in September and am planning the following:

3 round tiers

chocolate cake

blackberry preserves in-between layers

blackberry mousse in-between layers (on top of preserves)

white chocolate buttercream for the dam and the crumb coat (probably)

white chocolate ganache for icing

For the ganache I have heard several different ideas as to how it should be done. Some just say straight up (chocolate & cream), some say add butter, others say add corn syrup, and even others are combinations of these. Does anybody know the way to go for a wedding cake? The wedding is in the fall here in Vancouver so it will be pretty cool, therefore not too concerned with sweating or melting (I think the corn syrup is to help the sweats).

Also, any input/tips on my other selections would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much for the help.

Edit: to add one tier...

Edited by Jerry_A (log)
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Hello Jerry! Sounds like a heavenly cake to me. Question. You said that your cake layers will be chocolate. You are speaking of a white chocolate sponge/or chiffon right? This is just because if you have a dark chocolate cake layer, covering it with white chocolate ganache will show through. Anyhoo, assuming they are white chocolate cake layers I prefer the recipies with corn syrup. They usually produce the intense shine of ganache poured over anything. If you have access to "clear glaze" I have a great recipe I just got from the lovely Felchlin people.

Debra Diller

"Sweet dreams are made of this" - Eurithmics

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I was actually hoping to do regular (brown) chocolate cake, my thought was that if I put a layer of white chocolate buttercream on the cake before I put the ganache on, then the brown would not show through. Maybe refrigerating the cake after the buttercream layer so the ganache will go on more easily? I really like the contrast of brown cake with white icing so maybe I will have to skip the ganache all together and just go with buttercream (I hope not). Please let me know what you think as I value your input, if this idea will not work I need to think of something else.

p.s.: I will definitely try the corn syrup then, but what about butter, yay or nay?

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The more corn syrup or butter that is added will make for a thinner/softer ganache. For a wedding cake I personally would go with just chocolate and cream. White chocolate is already so sweet that adding corn syrup to it seems like it will make it too sweet in the end. You could add a little bit of butter for a nice sheen, I'd just be careful about making the ganache too soft....

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The following recipe is an alternative to traditional buttercream/ganache icings, it has a nice glossy finish and is reliably easy to make:

White Chocolate Cream Cheese Buttercream

12 ounces white chocolate, chopped

18 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temp

2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon lemon extract

1. Place chocolate in a bowl over a pan of hot water over low heat and stir until melted. (Do not allow chocolate to become too hot) Cool slightly.

2. In a bowl with electric mixer, beat cream cheese until smooth. Gradually add in cooled white chocolate, then butter, lemon juice and extract.

3. Refrigerate until ready to use.

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Jerry, if you want to do your idea I always try out ideas on say a 3" round cake or a small cake for a trial. Do your crumb coat then a 2nd coat of buttercream and give your w/c ganache a trial. If you like the results go for it!

On a side note:

What other decoration is going on the wedding cake? Did they give you a picture of and idea or anything? Are you adding say ganache or buttercream flowers? What are your borders (where the cakes line up on top of each other)? Just getting ideas as I am also doing a friend's wedding cake next year.

Debra Diller

"Sweet dreams are made of this" - Eurithmics

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I'm planning to do some preliminary testing this weekend mainly just for flavours, textures, etc... I will not be getting into the actual structure of the cake for a little while, until I have found the combinations I like. Beginning Saturday I will be baking a couple different small cakes and trying out some of my ideas, plus some of the suggestions I have received here (I'm expecting to be at least three pounds heavier come Monday).

As far as decoration goes my contribution will be minimal, the bride plans to use Hydrangeas for decorating and has therefore asked me to not decorate too heavily. This is one of the few requests they made along with "chocolate cake with white icing", so the majority of the choices are up to me (of course I will take input from sous chef Mrs. JerryA).

I will keep everyone posted on how things are progressing.

Thanks again.

PastryLady, any preliminary thoughts on what you are going to make?

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I once had to make 160 diamond shaped mini cakes for a party, walnut chiffon genoise with white chocolate ganache glaze, served with pistachio creme anglaise. The ganache didn't cover well at all. I wound up hand icing each freaking piece of cake. But I didn't have any kind of crumb coat or any other covering. This might work if your cake has a base coat.

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I've had problems working with white chocolate -- it's harder to stay smooth than dark. The one time I tried to frost a cake with a white chocolate ganache (Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipe which was basically just white chocolate and mineral oil) it hardened freakishly fast. But I might have been trying in a too cold room and I was frosting, rather than glazing. Practice with the white chocolate before attempting the cake. If it doesn't work, I think just the buttercream would be more than fine, and beautiful, to boot. Or if you wanted to do a square cake I've seen ones where a thin sheet of white chocolate was basically stuck to the side of the cake. It looked beautiful

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Nope Jerry, no ideas yet. They are planning a June 2005 wedding and haven't really done much thinking about the cake. They got engaged last month so I will bug them later in the year for thoughts I guess. I am actually excited to do it though. My only major problem is that I am a bridesmaid(en) too and thinking that someone whom I do not know will have to deliver it.

Debra Diller

"Sweet dreams are made of this" - Eurithmics

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My experience with white chocolate ganche to coat a wedding cake, it's tricky and requires experience!

Problem: as you already realize-over a chocolate cake (or most cakes) it needs a base coat to seal for smoothness and color cover. But the problem I've had is- it wants to slide off a butter based frosting.

Perhaps someone else has perfected this and can help you get past this-I haven't really tried-instead I've used other options.

I use just chocolate and cream, but I would be open to adding corn syrup or glucose-that might be helpful. I find it's "tricky" because there's just enough cream to make the chocolate flow and it's got to be just at the right temp. to pour it and get a nice finish-AND your cake needs to be at a matching temp.. If's it just a hair too cool when you take a spatula to the top to aid in the flowing over the sides you won't get a clean look.

I believe Herme' has such a combo (choc. and blackberry) in his book-you might want to check that out for reference on your filling.

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Wendy, were you in my apartment, looking over my shoulder as I made some test cakes this weekend? What you described is exactly what happened, I stared in horror as the ganache slid off the cake like water off a ducks back. I tried to salvage some of the remaining ganache by mixing it in my mixer a little bit which worked, although it did not look that great. So after all of this I had one cake with just white-chocolate buttercream (pretty tasty), one with white chocolate slop puddled around the bottom of it, and one with some sort of whipped ganache hybrid.

All in all it was a big disaster, except for the first cake which was pretty darn good. Eating the last cake made me think that the ganache added too much sweetness and not enough flavour, so I'm not sure what to do about that. Also, we felt that there was not enough blackberry flavour coming through from the blackberry jam and mousse, I'm thinking maybe I will pour blackberry juice right on the inside of each half of the cake before I put the other fillings in it, to hopefully intensify the berry flavour.

Well, that was my weekend, now feeling a little wiser, a little deflated, and a heck of a lot dumber....oh well, there is always next week!

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Well I wasn't in your apartment but I've been in your shoes! Ha.......

Seriously, another better way to approach this is to pre-coat your cake in white choc. ganche and skip the butter cream all together (chances are the butter cream is what's making it too sweet also). Make your ganche and chill it until it's barely spreadable. Pipe it on like you would (with a large tip) any other frosting, smoothing your sides with a spatula and chill. Pay attention to any divets or bulges so you surface is smooth, even it it visually looks like a mess at this point. Then pour your ganche over ganche. It will work but you'll need to find the right temp.s. Your ganche coated cake will need to be cold (so the base remains and doesn't melt) and your pouring ganche will need to be borderline warm (so it flows quickly, yet doesn't melt your crumb coat).

Other opinions........I think getting the blackberry flavor as intense as you want might need to be approached another way. Not that a soaking isn't a good thing sometimes.........instead sometimes you need contrast to highlight a flavor and too much actually numbs your senses. Jam and a mousse should give you alot. If it's not as you wrote, I'd look at your mousse recipe and see how diluted the fruit is with egg white and or whip cream. Do you own Herme's book? If not, I bet there's a way I could post enough for you to understand what he's doing to compare with what your doing. The reason, I trust him completely, he really is a genious in the pastry kitchen.

P.S. You need to take serious consideration of which brand of white chocolate your using. Some as mentioned by chocophile are deoderized and lack good white chocolate flavor...leaving you with just a sweet bland nothingness (hey is that a new word?).

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Let's see.....

Firstly, that sounds like a great plan...I think I will try that. I'm pretty sure that the cake at our wedding was just a thick white chocolate ganache over the cake and no buttercream. Of course this was over white cake (my personal favourite, not really a big chocolate cake guy) which obviously did not cause the problems I am facing here. You are right though, the temperature will be key.

Second, I do not own Herme's book, although it seems that I should. My mousse recipe is as follows:

2 cups packed fresh blackberries

1 envelope unflavored gelatin

2 tablespoons cold water

1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/4 cup water

2 egg whites

1 1/2 cups whipping cream

I thought this was relatively sound, but maybe there is a better way.

Third, I used Callebaut white chocolate. I could smell it from my living room as it sat wrapped on the kitchen counter...it almost did not make it to the ganache.

Question: For this ganache do you recommend a higher white chocolate to cream ratio?

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Well on first glanze I'd have to see how well you were pureeing and straining your blackberries. I'm wondering if your getting enough fruit left after pureeing, cause I'd probably use a whole 2 c. of puree to those whites and cream-you might only have 1 1/4 c. of puree left after straining (have you measured what you get?).

The best part of the puree is the hardest to get....once your easy juice is strained out you have to really work the seeds left, because they have a thickening and dense puree you have to work from them. If it's possible, buying in fruit puree is a better way.

As far as the brand of chocolate, I'm not that crazy about Callabaut-have you looked thru other threads lately theres been alot of talk about which brands of white are better and best.

My recipe for a coating white choc. ganche is 7 oz white choc. to 1/4 c. heavy cream. It could handle up to 1 tbsp. of corn syrup if you want to experiment.

HTH?

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  • 1 month later...

I'm making a wedding cake that will be coated with chocolate ganache -- that's really the only "must have" but the bride also likes pound cake. I've never glazed a cake with ganache before, so I did a mini test run, coating the cake in buttercream first, then pouring ganache over the buttercream. It looked fabulous, but was rich to the point of being inedible, and I worry how will this will stand up for a June wedding in potential heat.

I found this recipe on Epicurious:

Chocolate Raspberry Torte

Which suggests that you can make a glaze from strained raspberry jam as an underlayer for ganache.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Does it work? Does it yield the same kind of beautiful smooth surface that buttercream does?

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

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