Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Have you ever made chocolate ganache?  It’s the easiest thing in the cooking world and oh so wickedly decadent.  It’s a great thing to do with any quality leftover chocolate (in the past we’ve used Lindt Easter eggs), and the finished ganache will keep in the fridge for at least a couple of weeks.

There are only two ingredients in ganache – heavy cream and chocolate.  You can make it with just about any sort of chocolate, although I’d strongly suggest that you use the very best you can afford.  There really isn’t much to this, so the flavour of the chocolate won’t be masked in any way.  We normally use Callebaut 54% dark callets, but in the past we’ve also made milk and white chocolate versions.

The proportion of chocolate to cream determines, not surprisingly, the viscosity of the finished product.  The recipe I’ve given here results in a creamy ganache that will stay soft in the fridge, but if you increase the chocolate content, you can make a firm ganache that will set hard enough to form into centres for chocolate truffles.

• 3 cups of heavy cream (35% fat)
• 450g (1lb) dark chocolate, either in callet form or finely chopped

1. Put the chocolate in a heatproof mixing bowl. In a saucepan, bring the cream to a boil,  then pour over the chocolate. Stir gently with a whisk until smooth – this can take a few minutes, so don’t rush it. Don’t whisk it hard – you don’t want to beat air into it. At first it will look like it’s not combining, but soon you’ll have a velvety chocolate liquid.

2. Pour the mix into containers, cover and store in the fridge, until cold. The photo above was taken after the ganache has been chilled and stirred.

Having a tub of ganache in the fridge is very empowering!  We use it as a chocolate sauce over icecream, a glaze for cakes, an easy hot chocolate mix or sometimes we simply eat it with a spoon.  Swirl it through custard before churning in an ice cream maker, or heat it gently,  and serve fondue style at the table with cut up fruit.

Last night we had friends over and I needed an instant dessert – all my addled brain could come up with on short notice was savoiardi biscuits (ladyfingers) topped with dark and white chocolate ganache. They were delicious, if somewhat artistically challenged.

Chef Ming Tsai suggests making an easy chocolate dessert by mixing whipped cream with a generous dollop of ganache.  This produces a dark chocolate mousse (without any raw egg angst), which we serve in little espresso cups, accompanied by Belgian chocolate sticks for dipping. Be warned, it’s very rich – you really can’t eat a lot of this!