For the final rounds of holiday baking, about the easiest upgrade to an everyday cookie or other dessert recipe is ganache. This combination of chocolate and cream is so simple to make you’ll wonder why you ever bought bottled chocolate sauce. When cooled until firm, ganache can be shaped, so you may know it best as the chocolate center of truffles.
I tend to use ganache more simply, as a warm sauce poured over ice cream or fruit, a drizzled topping on cookies or a glaze for cakes. Turn Chocolate-Sour Cream Cookies into treats worthy of a holiday tray by drizzling on ganache in an attractive pattern. To make a snack cake the star of a New Year’s Eve party, bake and stack Chocolate Pudding Cake with ganache as the filling, glaze or both.
Let ganache cool, and it firms up enough to whip and spread like frosting on cupcakes. I even scoop it into a piping bag for decorative cookies, like the thumbprint ones I’ll share here next week.
For the most versatile ganache, and one that reheats smoothly, I use equal parts chocolate and cream. You can tweak the ratio, but with this recipe, the still-warm sauce remains pourable and then becomes stiffer the longer it cools. The main thing is to let it cool gradually, even if you plan to refrigerate it later. Chilling for a quick set may seem like a shortcut, but this makes reheated sauce grainy and greasy.
I typically use good-quality bittersweet chocolate for ganache, with at least 60% cocoa. A darker chocolate produces a firmer, richer sauce, as does heavy versus light whipping cream. When sealed in a lidded jar, leftover ganache lasts about a week at room temperature. You can instead move it to the fridge once it has completely cooled.
Ganache (Chocolate Glaze)
Makes about 2 cups
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips or chopped chocolate
8 ounces heavy whipping cream
In a small saucepan, bring the cream just to a simmer. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and pour in the chocolate, swirling the pan to ensure the pieces are submerged. Cover the pan with a lid and let the mixture sit, without stirring, for five minutes.
Remove the lid and whisk the chocolate into the cream, starting at the center and working outward, until smooth. Let the ganache sit uncovered at room temperature for about 15 minutes to use it as a glaze or until cooled completely before storing in a lidded glass jar for later use.
To resoften ganache, let the stored jar come to room temperature if you refrigerated it. Half-fill a small saucepan with warm water. Uncap the jar, set it in the water and then bring the water just to a simmer over low heat. Stir the ganache. If it hasn’t softened sufficiently, remove the jar, empty and fully dry the saucepan and then scrape the ganache into it and whisk until the chocolate is smooth and flows.
Julie Laing is a Bigfork-based cookbook author and food blogger at TwiceAsTasty.com.