On the second day of cocoa my true love gave to me: two chocolate drinks and a white “chocolate” one, too. My “true love” being chocolate, of course. Chocolate gave me chocolate? Just go with it.
On this aptly rainy Day Two of the Twelve Days of Cocoa I’ve decided to gift to you a more elegant, but still simple, hot cocoa technique.
Ganache. It’s just sounds fancy, doesn’t it? Heat up some cream, pour it over chocolate to melt, swirl into your preferred warmed milk, and voila! hot cocoa. Tell everyone at your next dinner party they’re drinking ganache hot chocolate and they will be impressed with your culinary prowess.
Ganache is a silky smooth mixture of chocolate and cream that can be used in many ways from thick frosting to fancy hot cocoa. The consistency of your ganache is determined by the cream-to-chocolate ratio. This ratio is higher (more cream less chocolate) for hot cocoa applications and lower (less cream more chocolate) for thicker frosting applications.
As with my simple hot cocoa you can add vanilla, cinnamon or nutmeg (or all of the above) to this beverage to give it more layers of flavor.
Ganache can be made with just about any chocolate you can get your hands on, but it’s a good idea to use high-quality chocolate with fewer additives to really let the chocolate flavor shine. (Get a bar of chocolate from your grocery store baking aisle instead of chocolate chips.) The photos here show dark chocolate ganache, light chocolate ganache, and white chocolate ganache. We’ll save the, “white chocolate isn’t chocolate” conversation for another time.
This will be the base for several upcoming hot cocoa recipes so make a batch today and refrigerate in an air tight container. Ganache will last about two weeks. It will harden as it cools, but it just needs to be warmed up to loosen up again.
Ganache
1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
3 Ounces Chocolate, chopped
-Heat cream (do not boil!)
-Stir into chocolate until melted
Ganache Hot Cocoa
1 Cup (or mug) Milk, warmed
Ganache to taste
-Stir ingredients together
-Serve warm
-Top with fresh whipped cream or marshmallows
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- [...] this case the cheater way is the best way. So I added a few drops of orange extract to my light chocolate ganache hot cocoa. Flavor [...]
- [...] have a tasty vegan beverage. I’m sure there are vegan alternatives for whipped cream, too. Ganache has heavy cream in it so to keep it vegan you’ll have to use cocoa powder or ground cocoa [...]
- [...] enough to blend with my immersion blender. Then strained the juice out and used that to flavor my dark chocolate ganache. Not one to waste delicious ingredients I mixed some of the left-over cherry pulp into my whipped [...]
- [...] start with the cocoa basics. You must, must, must first learn how to make ganache. Ganache hot cocoa makes the best base for all of these cocoa recipes. If you’re not that [...]
- [...] this peanut butter hot cocoa pairs well with any occasion, feeling, or event. I suggest using the dark chocolate ganache for this recipe, but milk chocolate is also [...]
Jennifer
December 16, 2011 at 11:50 pm (7 years ago)