I absolutely love ganache and the way it transforms the taste of a cake. It has such a smooth and luxurious texture and it is just perfect for covering cakes if you want those sharp edges to cover in icing / fondant. I particularly love using it for covering wedding cakes as it is a little less temperamental to temperature than buttercream. I am so excited to share with you a video which details the process I use to make my ganache, whether I need milk, dark or white chocolate.
The thing to remember about ganache is that is all about the ratios, there are only 2 ingredients, double cream and chocolate so as long as you are following the ratios for the different kinds of chocolate you should be fine. The ratio for milk and dark chocolate is 2:1 chocolate to cream. For white chocolate this is 3:1 chocolate to cream, although I usually tend to use 2.5:1 so it’s not as firm.
I think one of the most important things to remember which I talk about in the video is that if the ganache does go wrong it can be fixed. Sometimes if the chocolate gets too hot, too quickly the fat in the chocolate can separate, but by adding a small amount of warm milk this should bind it back together again.
Chocolate Ganache Recipe
Ingredients
- 200 ml Double Cream
- 400 g Milk Chocolate
Instructions
- Into a mixing bowl sift in the plain flour. Add the bicarbonate of soda, the ground cinnamon and the ground ginger and pop to one side.
- Into a saucepan add the butter, caster sugar, the brown sugar and the golden syrup and place this onto your hob until all the ingredients have melted together.
- You then want to add your melted ingredients to your dry ingredients in your mixing bowl. Using a wooden spoon or spatula mix this all together until it forms a dough. You can finish this off mixing it with your hands to make sure the ingredients are all combined.
- Take a piece of cling film / plastic wrap and push down your dough, coving it over. Place this into the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Whilst your dough is in the fridge you will need to print off and cut out your template pieces. You can find my template here.
- After 30 minutes take your dough out of the fridge. You can then dust your surface with a little flour and roll out your dough until its around 5mm in thickness. Then use a knife to cut out all of your shapes and place on a baking tray.
- Place your cut out shapes into a preheated oven set to 180 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes. You want the edges just to start changing colour.
- After 10 minutes you can take your shapes out of the oven to let them cool. I like to use my templates and carefully (they will be hot) cut around the template a second time, to cut off any areas that have spread in size. This will help your house fit together a little easier.
- You then have all the pieces for your gingerbread house. I like to use royal icing to stick my pieces together. Watch how to decorate your Gingerbread house in my tutorial above.
Why not save the recipe for later and pin it to Pinterest
6 responses
I wanted the recipe for garnish for origami
Hi Bridget, For the origami cake I made the ganache in exactly the same way, but used the white chocolate that I mention in the tutorial rather than the milk chocolate.
Hi Lynsey, Thank you so much for this recipe! I find so many of your tutorials helpful.
I wanted to know, once you have coated in the ganache, how do I get the cake ready for fondant? After the ganache on the outside, is it ready to put fondant on or are there other steps I need to take like chilling first?
Thank you so much for your time and help
Leanne
Hi Leanne, I am so pleased you find the tutorials helpful. In regards to getting the ganached cake ready for fondant, I always chill my cakes once it’s been added as you want a really firm base to work on. I then brush some boiled water mixed with a little icing sugar onto the surface of the ganache to help the fondant stick as when the ganache is fully chilled it can sometimes make it hard for the fondant to adhere to the sides.
Take a look at my latest tutorial as I cover a ganached cake in this, so you can see a little better what to do: https://cakesbylynz.com/index.php/2025/03/twinkle-twinkle-little-star-owl-cake-tutorial/
I hope this helps,
Lynsey