Pastry Ganache - Fillings and Glazes

[DiH]

Ganache makes the best hot chocolate... absolutely TDF!!!

Di

[M.X.Hassett]

Spoon, bowl, and whipped cream

[rooftop1000]

Found this thread while looking for other ides for my leftover ganache... I have been making hot chocolate out of it. I was really wondering if I could use it as a filling for ruggelach??

tracey

[etalanian]

The soft ganache will melt faster than the cookies will bake, so the ganache will most likely run out of the cookies onto the parchment or baking sheet. Try using grated chocolate for the rogelach filling.

[rooftop1000]

Well I still dont know if it will work in actual rugalach but if you take the dough and line a mini muffin pan you can certainly make a damn fine chocolate pecan tartlet.

Yummy

tracey

[R Washburn]

I need help making gianduja. Can anyone post a detailed recipe plus some tips? Should I be using cocoa butter instead of cream?

My first attempt was basically combining milk chocolate ganache with praline powder, and it bore little remblance to the ultra-creamy product you encounter in commercial chocolates.

[miladyinsanity]

Perhaps you should have 'reconstituted' the praline powder with liquid caramel first?

[Patrick S]

If you want creamy, you need praline paste rather than praline powder. As far as I know, there is no good way to make it at home, so you have to buy it. And its fairly pricey.

[tan319]

If you want creamy, you need praline paste rather than praline powder. As far as I know, there is no good way to make it at home, so you have to buy it. And its fairly pricey.

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You can make praline paste yourself in your food processor.

It's not going to be the same as the Mec3 pastes and the like but it will do the trick.

I used to offer Gianduja ice cream at one of my former places all of the time that I made my own praline paste for.

For bon bons, that would be a different story but for macaroons it should be fine.

[annachan]

You can make praline paste yourself in your food processor.

It's not going to be the same as the Mec3 pastes and the like but it will do the trick.

I used to offer Gianduja ice cream at one of my former places all of the time that I made my own praline paste for.

For bon bons, that would be a different story but for macaroons it should be fine.

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Do you have a recipe? I would like to try it out.

[xdrixn]

gianduja recipe

2kg hazelnuts

1500 g sugar

200 g butter

6 vanilla beans

200 gr milk powder

1kg milk chocolate

500 g white chocolate

500 g unsweetened chocolate

heat sugar to 175c, remove from heat and add butter, return to heat and add nuts, lay onsilpat to cool. mix all ingredients except chocolate and pass until smooth. blend in chocolate

[Patrick S]

You can make praline paste yourself in your food processor.

It's not going to be the same as the Mec3 pastes and the like but it will do the trick.

I used to offer Gianduja ice cream at one of my former places all of the time that I made my own praline paste for.

For bon bons, that would be a different story but for macaroons it should be fine.

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Do you have a recipe? I would like to try it out.

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Me too. If it is half as creamy as the stuff you buy, I'd be happy. None of my attempts ever in the past even came close to the canned stuff texture-wise, no matter how long I processed it.

[Art]

Well, in order to make it as creamy as the commercial stuff, you will have to be able to grind the hazelnut particles so that they are less than 20 microns in size. For the average home grinder, this is almost impossible to achive (at least on a uniform basis). Stirring for a REALLY long time will not help much either.

Commercially, it has to be run through the same equipment which is used to make chocolate in the first place since that equipment is designed to be able to get the cocoa bean, sugar, and other ingredients ground to a fineness of less than 20 microns. (15 microns are about optimum 10 microns is too fine.)

I made my own not too long ago using an antique melangeur and it turned out pretty good. My neighbors were pretty happy when I gave them samples as early Christmas presents!

-Art

Edited January 5, 2006 by Art (log)

[annachan]

Well, in order to make it as creamy as the commercial stuff, you will have to be able to grind the hazelnut particles so that they are less than 20 microns in size. For the average home grinder, this is almost impossible to achive (at least on a uniform basis).  Stirring for a REALLY long time will not help much either. 

Commercially, it has to be run through the same equipment which is used to make chocolate in the first place since that equipment is designed to be able to get the cocoa bean, sugar, and other ingredients ground to a fineness of less than 20 microns.  (15 microns are about optimum 10 microns is too fine.)

I made my own not too long ago using an antique melangeur and it turned out pretty good.  My neighbors were pretty happy when I gave them samples as early Christmas presents!

-Art

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I have a Chinese stone grinder at home that is traditionally used for making sesame paste and soy milk. I wonder if that would work.

Do you have a recipe for me to try out the grinder?

[Art]

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I have a Chinese stone grinder at home that is traditionally used for making sesame paste and soy milk. I wonder if that would work.

Do you have a recipe for me to try out the grinder?

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Well, when I did it, I did it mostly to taste. I had a 3x5 card around that I wrote the recipe on but quite frankly, it has since disappeared.

But what I did was to make a batch of chocolate in my melangeur, then using a spare batch of hazelnuts, I preground them into a paste (ala hazelnut butter) then added them to the chocolate along with extra sugar until it tasted right and then I reground everything in the melangeur.

So, I'd guess you are going to need something along the lines of :

* Chocolate

* Hazelnut butter (ground hazelnuts)

* Sugar

* Oil (Butter, peanut oil, hazelnut oil, other oil etc.)

* Possibly soy lecithin

I'd mix the chocolate and the hazelnut butter and sugar until it tastes right.. When I did it, I was a bit heavy on the hazelnuts which worked out just fine. At least 1/3 by weight was hazelnut butter. My chocolate was a 65% chocolate that I made from Arriba beans and I found that I had to add sugar to get the taste right. The amount of sugar will vary depending on the type of chocolate that you use since different chocolates have different blends of beans and differing amounts of sugar already in them as I am sure you are aware.

Once you have it tasting right, you will need to add some sort of an oil into the mix to bring the melting temperature down. I used butter with excellent results. Nutella uses peanut oil. I'd like to try hazelnut oil and some other oils and see how they work out.

You might want to try adding soy lecithin to help it blend better and smooth things out a bit. You can buy soy lecithin at any good health food store. Be sure to use the liquid kind since that will blend better than the lecithin in powder form. I haven't tried this step yet but, I suspect it will improve things. Be sure if you add some, to use it already in _very_ small amounts. (As in few drops) Odds are that the chocolate that you use already has some in it and if you add too much, rather than making it "thinner", it will make it thicker. With regular chocolate, you don't want to have more than .3%. Above this point -- especially after .5%, it starts to thicken. This changes with the addition of the hazelnut paste and other oils so, I'm sure you can add more but I don't know how much. The point here is that if you do this only add a very tiny amount. A litttle bit will do ya.

The recipe doesn't have to be exact -- just do it to taste. I'm sure you will be happy with the results. And even if you don't get it perfectly smooth, it will still taste delicious!

-Art

[RDW]

For years I've been making a dacquoise with a whipped ganache filling. The recipe for this ganache is 2 cups heavy cream to 8 oz chocolate. It whips beautifully and has a great flavor and texture.

I'm about to attempt a new Martha Stewart recipe for Devil's Food Cake. It's a two layer cake with ganache filling and chocolate icing. The filling/icing calls for a ganache made of 4 cups heavy cream, 2 lbs chocolate and 1/4 c. corn syrup. Half of the mixture js whipped for filling between 2 cake layers and for a thin crumb coating. The other half remains liquid and is poured over the frosted cake.

So, adapting my ganache recipe to Martha's, I'd use 1 lb of chocolate for 4 cups of heavy cream, rather than Martha's 2 lbs!

Here's a link to the cake recipe: http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?ty...A&layout=martha

My questions:

1. My old ganache recipe for the whipped ganache has worked perfectly with half the quantity of chocolate. What happens when you double the chocolate to 1 lb as per Martha's recipe?

2. Will the ganache whip as nicely with corn syrup?

3. Any opinions on icing the cake with liquid ganache made of 1 pound chocolate, 2 cups heavy cream and 1/8 c. corn syrup. Do those proportions seem correct?

Right now I'm thinking I'll stick with my old ganache recipe for the whipped ganache but use Martha's with the corn syrup added for the icing.

Am anxious to hear opinions of forum members.

Thanks!

[Sethro]

My questions:

1.  My old ganache recipe for the whipped ganache has worked perfectly with half the quantity of chocolate.  What happens when you double the chocolate to 1 lb as per Martha's recipe?

2.  Will the ganache whip as nicely with corn syrup?

3.  Any opinions on icing the cake with liquid ganache made of 1 pound chocolate, 2 cups heavy cream and 1/8 c. corn syrup.  Do those proportions seem correct?

Thanks!

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1. More chocolate means a harder setting ganache. Your recipe would provide a lighter ganache, while Martha's would be denser.

2. Yes, it will whip fine with the corn syrup. It's purpose is to keep the ganache softer when cold, to smooth out the texture and to provide a gloss. Glucose works way better in my opinion, and with alot less needed.

3. A pound of chocolate to a pint of cream is pretty much a 1:1 ratio ganache, which is fine for icing. Alot of that depends on personal taste. The higher the cream in the ratio, the thinner and softer coverage you'll get.

[RDW]

Thanks so much for your explanation. I flipped through Sherry Yard's book and she described soft, medium and hard ganaches with varying proportions of cream and chocolate.

[ablosh]

I'm also new to this and have only tried equal proportions of cream and chocolate.

After reading this I think mine could use a bit more "shine" to it though. Can anyone provide a great chocolate ganache with glucose in the recipe?

[Sethro]

Well ganache isn't going to get too shiny sinc its totally out of temper, but glucose helps perk up it's looks a little.

I'd say somewhere around 1tbsp glucose to every 20oz chocolate is plenty.

Here's my fav ganache recipe, very smooth at room temp, and perfect for cutting clean lines right out of the fridge. Definately not for glazing though.

16.5 floz cream

7 oz butter

1 Tbsp glucose

1/8 tsp salt

20 oz 66% bittersweet chocolate (I like Guitard)

Edited January 13, 2006 by Sethro (log)

[aidensnd2]

40g 66% bittersweet chocolate (I like Guitard)

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I'm thinking perhaps you meant 40 oz?

[Sethro]

Yeah, heh, I edited to fix that. I also halved the recipe since I doubted anyone would want to "test" a full sheet of ganache.

[mrose]

I recently saw this recipe for gianduja ganache. The ingrediants are straight forward except for the addition of cocoa butter. Why are we adding more cocoa butter?

300g cream

1/2 vanillia pod

25g trimoline

75g butter

650g gianduja

80g cocoa butter

[Kerry Beal]

I recently saw this recipe for gianduja ganache. The ingrediants are straight forward except for the addition of cocoa butter.  Why are we adding more cocoa butter?

300g cream

1/2 vanillia pod

25g trimoline

75g butter

650g gianduja

80g cocoa butter

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Firm it up a bit maybe?

The recipe that I put together for a gianduja truffle uses about 1/2 as much cream as gianduja, but I seem to have added a fair bit of extra bittersweet chocolate to get the texture I wanted in order to form truffles.

[mrose]

Kerry

That was my initial thought. This recipe might be used for molds. When you added bittersweet chocolate, did the truffle hold shape pretty well? Did you also cover it in dark chocolate?

Mark