Making Ganache

ALISTAIR WISE, of Hobart’s Sweet Envy, steers us through one of the pastry kitchen’s most essential – and mesmerising – preparations.

A happy union of cream and chocolate, ganache is a staple of the pastry kitchen. Its many applications depend on its consistency, which changes as it cools and sets. “Ganache is a basic building block,” says Alistair Wise, of Hobart’s Sweet Envy. “Once you master it, you can use it in a whole bunch of ways: we whip it and use it in our Brooklyn blackout cake, pipe it onto macarons, use it to make chocolate buttercream for cakes, or use it as a glaze. It makes life pretty easy.”

Room temperature is best for storage, but there are exceptions to every rule. “If it’s 40 degrees, don’t do it,” Wise says. “Making ganache in a place like Cairns makes no sense. You should be sucking a mango.”

Step by step

1 Combine 300ml of pouring cream and 50gm glucose in a small saucepan. Put it on the heat and bring it to just below boiling point.