I love frosting cakes with chocolate ganache – it’s rich and delicious, spreads smoothly onto a cake, and is ridiculously easy to make! When it sets it’s firm so it’s a good option to apply before covering a cake with fondant.
To use ganache as frosting, the quantities of chocolate and cream are equal but you can change with the consistency of the ganache to get different results, for example to decorate a cake with a drip, make chocolate truffles, or even glaze doughnuts! I have a detailed tutorial on different ways to make and use ganache here.
You can use any kind of chocolate for your ganache but you might have to adjust the recipe – the recipe below is for dark or semi-sweet chocolate, which has a ratio of 1 part chocolate to 1 part cream. For white chocolate you’ll need a ratio of 3 parts chocolate to 1 part cream, for example 300g white chocolate and 100g cream.
Chocolate Ganache
Makes enough ganache to frost an 8″ cake
Ingredients
500ml of heavy cream (about 2 cups)
500g (about 3 cups) of semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips or in bar form
Method
1. In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, heat cream until bubbles form around the sides of the pan. Do not let cream simmer or boil.
2. Meanwhile, if you’re using a bar of chocolate rather than chocolate chips, chop chocolate into equal sized pieces no bigger than 1 inch.
3. Remove cream from heat and add chocolate, using a spoon or spatula to move it around so that it is completely covered by the cream. Leave for 5 minutes.
4. Stir the cream until all of the chocolate has melted and the mixture is thick and smooth.
5. Leave to cool for 2-3 hours at room temperature or speed up the process by putting it in the fridge, stirring every 15 minutes to prevent hard lumps of chocolate forming.
6. To make frosting, whisk room temperature ganache for about 2 minutes until it lightens in colour and has a consistency slightly thicker than whipped cream.
To store, refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 1 month.