How to Make Chocolate Ganache

Use this as your complete guide for making homemade chocolate ganache. Chocolate ganache is a 2-ingredient recipe with virtually endless uses. For the best tasting ganache, I recommend using semi-sweet chocolate.

Chocolate ganache is a mixture of chocolate and warm cream. Stirred until smooth, silky, and shiny, ganache is a staple in any baker’s kitchen. It’s not only easy and quick, it’s uniquely versatile. Chocolate ganache can be used with so many dessert recipes as a filling, dip, spread, frosting, topping, or layer in a cake. The uses are virtually endless!

It’s not as syrupy and caramel-like as hot fudge sauce, but it does thicken considerably.

Uses for Chocolate Ganache

• Topping for chocolate cupcakes, cream-filled chocolate cupcakes, or no-bake cheesecake jars
• Filling for layer cakes
• Topping for this showstopping chocolate chip cake 
• As a frosting for chocolate peanut butter cake or dark chocolate mousse cake
• Swirl in chocolate marble banana Bundt cake
• Topping for homemade brownies, pound cake, vanilla cake, or ice cream
• Swirled throughout chocolate swirl pistachio ice cream
• Filling for chocolate hand pies
• As a layer in crème de menthe pie
• Dip for strawberries and other fruit (serve with a bowl of whipped cream, too!)
• Topping for chocolate cake or flourless chocolate cake
• Frosting for chocolate raspberry cake (and you can even flavor it with raspberry liqueur)
• Layered in trifles
• Filling for no-bake s’mores cake
• Topping for homemade eclairs, crepes, angel food cake, and peanut butter pie
• Filling for striped fudge cookies and peanut butter fudge puddles
• Topping for marble loaf cake (with slightly reduced cream for a thicker ganache!)
• As a layer in peanut butter banana cream pie and peanut butter pie
• Filling inside of Easter cupcakes or your favorite cupcake recipe (see my How to Fill Cupcakes post for exact details on how to do so)

Let’s dive into an in-depth chocolate ganache tutorial. If you don’t care to read through the tutorial, feel free to jump straight to the recipe below.

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Chocolate Ganache Video Tutorial

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2 Ingredients in Chocolate Ganache

1. Heavy Cream or Heavy Whipping Cream: Do not use half-and-half, whole milk, or any other liquid because the ganache won’t set up properly. For a non-dairy alternative, use canned coconut milk. See recipe note.
2. Pure Chocolate: You can use semi-sweet chocolate (recommended), bittersweet chocolate, milk chocolate, or white chocolate. See recipe note.

When making homemade ganache, you need roughly a 1:1 weight ratio of cream to chocolate. (226g of chocolate for 240g of cream.)

Did you know that chocolate ganache is the base for chocolate truffles? I actually use less cream when I make chocolate truffles. Instead of a 1:1 weight ratio, use 8 ounces of chocolate and 2/3 cup (160ml/g) cream for truffles.

Best Chocolate to Use in Chocolate Ganache

The best chocolate for chocolate ganache is a pure chocolate baking bar, such as Bakers or Ghirardelli brands. (Not sponsored, just a genuine customer!) These are typically sold in 4-ounce (113g) bars in the baking aisle near the chocolate chips. Do not use chocolate chips because they will not melt into the best ganache consistency—save them for chocolate chip cookies instead. If you absolutely must use chocolate chips, make sure they are higher-quality chocolate such as Ghirardelli or Guittard brand semi-sweet chocolate chips.

For traditional chocolate ganache, I recommend using semi-sweet chocolate. This is the most commonly found chocolate in the baking aisle. Semi-sweet chocolate contains 35–45% cacao and is usually sweeter than bittersweet or dark varieties and darker than milk chocolate and white chocolate. If you like it a little darker, bittersweet chocolate (60% cacao) also makes an excellent ganache.

TIP: The best tool for chopping chocolate is a large serrated knife. The grooves help chip away the hard chocolate bar texture.

How to Make Chocolate Ganache

1. Place finely chopped chocolate into a heat-proof glass or metal bowl.
2. Heat cream on the stovetop until just simmering. If it’s boiling, the cream is too hot and could separate or even burn the chocolate. Once you see little simmers around the edges, turn off the heat and immediately pour the warm cream over the chocolate.
3. Let the 2 sit for a few minutes before stirring.
4. Stir slowly until smooth.

After you stir the chocolate and warm cream together, use the ganache right away as a fruit dip or drizzle on top of cakes, cupcakes, pound cakes, ice cream, and more. But if you wait about 2 hours and let it cool completely, the ganache can be scooped with a spoon, spread onto desserts, or piped with piping tips.

Piped Chocolate Ganache

If you’re craving a pure chocolate topping for your desserts, choose chocolate ganache. Once it cools and sets, you can pipe it onto your favorites including chocolate cupcakes. Super intricate piping tips aren’t ideal. Wilton 1M piping tip or Ateco 844 piping tip are my favorites for piped chocolate ganache. I used Ateco 844 in these photos.

Whipped Ganache

Let’s take chocolate ganache 1 step further. Did you know that you can beat ganache into a whipped frosting consistency? Think of the whipped buttercream from this vanilla sheet cake, but not as sweet or heavy. Once the chocolate ganache cools completely, whip it on medium-high speed until light in color and fluffy in texture, about 4 minutes. Now you have a decadent mousse-like frosting without an onslaught of extra sugar. It’s REALLY good!

You can pipe the whipped ganache, too. I used Ateco 844 piping tip in this next photo.

These 2 Tricks Make Chocolate Ganache Even Easier

Here are my 2 super simple tricks that make ganache even easier to make.

1. Chop the chocolate as fine as possible. The finer you chop the chocolate, the quicker it melts with the cream. If the chocolate is in large large chunks, it won’t fully melt. And if the chocolate is not melting, reference Troubleshooting Chocolate Ganache below.
2. Pour the warm cream over the chopped chocolate and let it sit before stirring. After you pour the warm heavy cream over the chopped chocolate, let it sit for a few minutes. During this time, the chocolate will soften and begin to melt which means that you won’t need to over-stir it. I’d rather spend extra minutes doing nothing than extra minutes stirring chocolate that won’t melt. Wouldn’t you?!

Troubleshooting Chocolate Ganache

After writing an entire cookbook (Sally’s Candy Addiction) on chocolate and candy, I’ve seen it all when it comes to making chocolate ganache. Seized chocolate? Yep. Grainy ganache. Yep, that too. Here are 3 problems you could encounter and how to fix each.

1. Chocolate Isn’t Melting: If the chocolate isn’t melting, it wasn’t chopped fine enough or the cream wasn’t warm enough. Chop the chocolate into very small pieces and warm the cream until it’s just simmering. The microwave doesn’t evenly warm cream like the stove does, so I always recommend the stove. If you’re left with chocolate chunks swimming in cream, do not microwave it. Instead, place the mixture into a double boiler OR place the (heat-proof!) glass bowl over a small saucepan of simmering water. Do not let the surface of the simmering water touch the bottom of the glass bowl. Stir the ganache constantly over the indirect heat until it’s smooth.
2. Chocolate Seized: When chocolate seizes, it creates a gritty and solid mass of chocolate. Simply put, seized chocolate will not melt. Chocolate seizes when it comes into contact with water. Don’t let even a drop of water into the bowl! Here is a wonderful article on overheated and seized chocolate.
3. Greasy or Grainy: Use a glass or metal bowl. A plastic bowl could melt or leave you with a dull or grainy ganache. Use real chocolate; cheap chocolate chips result in a grainy ganache. Use a spoon or small rubber spatula to stir the chocolate and warm cream together. Do not use a whisk. The whisk incorporates too much air into the delicate melting chocolate, which could cause the fat to separate and turn greasy.

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