What Happened To My %$@!* Ganache (Photo)?
Decorating By drakegore Updated 24 Apr 2009 , 11:33am by CakeGalUK
i decided i would try whipped ganache for the filling in my easter cake.
the ganache decided it was not going to cooperate...
it turned out like cottage cheese (see my photo, yech!)
used a CIA recipe: 10 oz. semi-sweet and 1 2/3 heavy cream. did heating of the cream, melting of the chocolate, cooling to room temp, then refrigerating overnight. then it called for taking cold ganache and adding 1/3 cup cream then whipping. it never got smooth and had a oatmeal texture thing going on.
what did i do wrong?
thanks!
diane
Mine did the exact same thing last week!!!!! I was dying to know what happened - I hope someone has the answer.
I used milk chocolate and heavy whip - equal parts let chill and did not add any more whip and it looked like that!
I don't fully understand the science behind why chocolate is a temperamental medium to work in. I had that same grainy problem with fudge awhile back. I know the slightest bit of water can make it seize up, so I just assumed I had done something wrong with adding liquids. (This is more a bump to the post than an answer, sorry for that, but I'd be interested to know as well)
I tried that too and it did the same thing again....
Okay, first off, you need to let it warm up to room temp. or else it will do what it just did, & thats called curdling. Your recipe, I'll be honest, I've never heard it done that way. Okay, heres what I do. Heat whip cream, chop up chocolate in food processor, pour heated cream into chocolate, while motor is running. Let cool, you may set in refrigerator until it reaches consistency of frosting. You can then frost or as I prefer (& most others) you whip it with wire whisk so texture is smoother & not as heavy as un-whipped ganache. If it curdles on you, you can even go back & remelt it together, start allover again from the cooling point. Now if you do a sourcream chocolate ganache, you melt the chocolate first,let cool, fold in sourcream, whip with wire whisk.
Ok. Well I wish that I'd known this about 3 months ago. I was SO mad!!! In a time-crunch and that happened to me. I swear, though, that it was my KA. Wesley does NOT do "as I wish" every now and again. I melted mine back down, took out my hand-held, and whipped away.
I agree that chocolate is a bit temparemental to work with. That said, I find the step of refrigerating the ganache overnight then adding cream to it when its cold a bit odd. The proportions seems okay though. I just saw a chocolate glaze from the cake bible that has butter to it. How about adding some soft butter? Honestly I don't know if that is going to work but someone else might have a (better) answer. 
Exactly.Melt it back down again. Believe it or not ganache can be very friendly as it is very basic with not a lot of steps unlike say IMBC or SMBC. And by the way, I never have perfectly cooled ganache, I'm just not patient enough. No problems & it can sit out for a few days too! 
If you add butter you are getting a glaze, as in poor it over cake, not frost on cake. Heres the thing about ganache, its the cream that makes it speadable, but it's the chocolate that makes it firm. If you leave it in fridge overnight it's gonna harden up (which by the way I've never heard of doing for frosting purposes, for making truffles yes, but not frosting), then you turn around and add cold or hot cream, BAMN, curdled mess. It's all about the right temperature with ganache & IMBC. And I'll say it again, if your ganache curdles on you, just remelt, don't add anything to it.
all this talk about ganache is making me hungry. I have some leftover cake last night with ganache on it. I'm off to go get a piece...
I digress...sorry
Don't feel bad, cause I just finished the last piece of banana cake with sourcream chocolate ganache. YUM!
all this talk about ganache is making me hungry. I have some leftover cake last night with ganache on it. I'm off to go get a piece...
I digress...sorry
Don't feel bad, cause I just finished the last piece of banana cake with sourcream chocolate ganache. YUM!
all this talk about ganache is making me hungry. I have some leftover cake last night with ganache on it. I'm off to go get a piece...
I digress...sorry
Don't feel bad, cause I just finished the last piece of banana cake with sourcream chocolate ganache. YUM!
umm sounds yummy ...can I have a piece of yours too?
thank you so much for all the help! this is such a great place!
when i started this project i had 6 different ganache recipes in hand (i love doing cake "research" , lol) and decided to go with the CIA recipe because i figured they would be the most safe. theirs was the only recipe that called for the ganache to be chilled before whipping. a couple of them had cream added before whipping, but most didn't.
when i took the ganache out of the fridge and stirred it by hand it was lovely smooth...it only got curdled when i put it on the KA.
i did the chilled ganache for 2-3 minutes on low and then another 3 minutes more on high after cream was added (this is the recipe). then after i saw it was going south on me, i tried beating some more to see if it could be saved...but nothing changed.
i tossed the whole mess...i didn't know about the remelting and starting again, aaaargh.
I caught that too, cute name for your KA! haha
Drakegore, what I usually do is let the ganache cool down, chill it in the frig and chill my beaters (I use my hand mixer for this most of the time) in the freezer. Then I just mix until it starts to change shades of brown. It goes from a smooth dark to a medium brown, I know then that air is starting to incorporate and it's whipping up. I only mix for a few more seconds after that, checking the consistency to make sure it's thick enough. I think if you continue to mix past that point, you venture into the "ganache behaving badly" stage. I'm not sure if this will help and I'm not an expert on ganache but it works for me.
i had been thinking the chilling was the problem but if you chill and don't have these issues, then maybe something else is at the bottom of my problems.
could it be my brand of chocolate (garden variety chocolate chips)?
could it be my ganache was not fully cool (though it sure felt like it was) when i put it in the fridge and condensation formed which caused the curdling?
This might be a silly question - why do you whip ganache ??
Not a silly question at all. When the ganache has cooled down (but not cold) it will set almost like a BC. When you whip it, it will incorporate some volume and will lighten up the colour a bit. The consistency is perfect for icing a cake and even for piping.
[quotewhen i took the ganache out of the fridge and stirred it by hand it was lovely smooth...it only got curdled when i put it on the KA.
i did the chilled ganache for 2-3 minutes on low and then another 3 minutes more on high after cream was added (this is the recipe). then after i saw it was going south on me, i tried beating some more to see if it could be saved...but nothing changed. [/quote]
Sounds to me like you may have overbeaten the ganache. Ganache will turn grainy and clumpy when overbeaten, just like overwhipped cream.
For that recipe I would mix on low just until cold ganache is "loose" add the cream and beat on medium till I see the beater's marks on the surface of the mixture, remove from mixer and finish by hand. Or safer yet, whip the cream separately and fold in loosened ganache.
I just finished the last piece of banana cake with sourcream chocolate ganache. YUM!
Freeze! Back up! Did you really say sour cream chocolate ganache? Oh, no, you're not really going to let me hang here with this one, are you? What did you do, sub sour cream for heavy cream? Please?
Theresa
Read your post and had my own ideas of what you could try differently. By the time I got to the end...Iron Baker, The Casual Kitchen and Antonia had stolen everything I wanted to say!!!
What happened to you sounds exactly like what happened to me when I tried to make a Tres Leche cake. The 'leche' part came out like ummm...sorry for those with week stomachs....vomit. Flavor was lovely, texture could not have been worse.
I learned after that you have to have your bowl and beaters chilled, and you should whip on the lowest speed possible. This should allow it to whip up nice and fast and not curdle.
I'm glad to know if I do that with ganache, I can re-melt. I don't think there was a solution for my Tres Leche, so we just ate it at home 
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%
