Any suggestions for rescuing a failed glaze? The recipe is straight
forward:

1/2 cup cream
6 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Boiled the cream, poured it over the chocolate, mixed.

This time, however, the glaze separated into a thick (but smooth)
chocolate and a light yellow liquid (some oil, I think; looked like ghee
but tasted bland). No amount of mixing would blend the two parts
together again.

The cream was a very rich, unhomogenized local brand that I've used
successfully many times. The chocolate was new (to me, anyway):
Ghiradelli 70% Extra Bittersweet.

If you can clue me in to what I did wrong, and have suggestions for
fixing what I have, I would appreciate your help.

Thanks,

Tomas

at Thu, 09 Mar 2006 16:53:16 GMT in -
kc.rr.com>, (Tomas Goodlaxson) wrote :

>Any suggestions for rescuing a failed glaze? The recipe is straight
>forward:
>
>1/2 cup cream
>6 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
>
>Boiled the cream, poured it over the chocolate, mixed.
>
>This time, however, the glaze separated into a thick (but smooth)
>chocolate and a light yellow liquid (some oil, I think; looked like ghee
>but tasted bland). No amount of mixing would blend the two parts
>together again.
>
>The cream was a very rich, unhomogenized local brand that I've used
>successfully many times. The chocolate was new (to me, anyway):
>Ghiradelli 70% Extra Bittersweet.
>
>If you can clue me in to what I did wrong, and have suggestions for
>fixing what I have, I would appreciate your help.
>
One of 2 things: either your cream was too hot (probable) or you stirred
too vigorously. Yes, stirring once a ganache has started to break actually
makes the situation worse, not better. 3:2 ratio? That's a little soft for
a true glaze - it's more of a soft truffle ganache. Firm truffle ganache
(actually somewhat better for truffles IMHO that the soft variant) is 2:1.
Filling ganache (also useful as a frosting, is typically 1:1.

Anyway, back to your situation. You can rescue it. But it will take some
doing. Here's how to proceed. First, warm up the whole mixture again until
everything is relatively fluid in a double-boiler. Now, set the top of the
double boiler in a bath of ice water. Stir slowly and then increasingly
vigorously as the mixture cools. At a certain critical point the whole
thing will smooth nicely. Now - and this is important - *stop stirring*,
and spoon the glaze over the pastry, working quickly. It will firm up fast,
and you'll need to spread it a bit so again the urgency to work quickly is
paramount. The result won't be *quite* as smooth as it would have been had
you succeeded first time, but it will be well within the range of
acceptability.

What you've basically done is retempered the entire mixture. It's the same
process as tempering couverture, applied now to ganache.

In future, remember that you want to heat the cream only to the brink of
boiling - it should never be boiling vigorously - and in fact a slightly
lower temperature like 180F/85C will be perfectly adequate. The finer your
chocolate particles, the better. I use a box grater for best results. Did
you get a Ghirardelli bloc or a bar? If the former, then using the box-
grater method should be convenient. With the bars, yeah, you need to chop
them, so take your time and really get it down nearly to powder. Resist the
urge to use a food processor because the risk of melting and/or detempering
the chocolate is too high. A heavy chef's knife and 15 minutes of work
should get you to the necessary state.

--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)

Alex Rast wrote:
> One of 2 things: either your cream was too hot (probable) or you stirred
> too vigorously.
From your description, both seem likely.
> 3:2 ratio? That's a little soft for
> a true glaze - it's more of a soft truffle ganache.
I haven't used this particular formula before, but it's a cake glaze
from Rose Levy Beranbaum's "Cake Bible."
> Anyway, back to your situation. You can rescue it. But it will take some
> doing. Here's how to proceed. First, warm up the whole mixture again until
> everything is relatively fluid in a double-boiler. Now, set the top of the
> double boiler in a bath of ice water. Stir slowly and then increasingly
> vigorously as the mixture cools. At a certain critical point the whole
> thing will smooth nicely. Now - and this is important - *stop stirring*,
> and spoon the glaze over the pastry, working quickly. It will firm up fast,
> and you'll need to spread it a bit so again the urgency to work quickly is
> paramount. The result won't be *quite* as smooth as it would have been had
> you succeeded first time, but it will be well within the range of
> acceptability.
>
I will give that a try, though I will have to bake another cake first.
> In future, remember that you want to heat the cream only to the brink of
> boiling - it should never be boiling vigorously - and in fact a slightly
> lower temperature like 180F/85C will be perfectly adequate. The finer your
> chocolate particles, the better. I use a box grater for best results. Did
> you get a Ghirardelli bloc or a bar?
Bar. I was seduced by the thinness of it into not chopping as finely as
I would with, say, the Scharffen-Berger blocks.
> A heavy chef's knife and 15 minutes of work
> should get you to the necessary state.
>
Thanks for the input, Alex; I appreciate your advice.

Tomas Goodlaxson wrote:
> Alex Rast wrote:
>> One of 2 things: either your cream was too hot (probable) or you
>> stirred too vigorously.
> From your description, both seem likely.
>> 3:2 ratio? That's a little soft for
>> a true glaze - it's more of a soft truffle ganache.
> I haven't used this particular formula before, but it's a cake glaze
> from Rose Levy Beranbaum's "Cake Bible."

RLB is completely reliable. Her book well deserves the title "Bible." I
wouldn't question her proportions when it comes to what works well with
cakes. In fact, I've made her cream glaze, and it worked perfectly. I've
used the book extensively, and always had superb results. She is also
unusual in that she gives some technical detail about why she makes the
choices she does.

It does sound as if the cream might have been too hot. Perhaps that plus an
unusually high fat content caused this separation? Is there optional cognac
in that recipe? If so, did you try adding it?

Janet Puistonen wrote:
> Tomas Goodlaxson wrote:
>
>> I haven't used this particular formula before, but it's a cake glaze
>> from Rose Levy Beranbaum's "Cake Bible."
>>
>
> RLB is completely reliable. Her book well deserves the title "Bible." I
> wouldn't question her proportions when it comes to what works well with
> cakes. In fact, I've made her cream glaze, and it worked perfectly. I've
> used the book extensively, and always had superb results. She is also
> unusual in that she gives some technical detail about why she makes the
> choices she does.
>

Yes, I find her books excellent sources for understanding, beyond mere
recipes. Although I still find her instructions for working pie dough
in a plastic bag to be incomprehensible.
> It does sound as if the cream might have been too hot. Perhaps that plus an
> unusually high fat content caused this separation? Is there optional cognac
> in that recipe? If so, did you try adding it?
>
>
As I review the recipe (glaze for éclairs, pg 537), it does say to bring
the cream to the boiling point, but it also says to let it sit on the
chocolate for five minutes before stirring gently. I'm sure I didn't
chop the chocolate as fine as I should have, I may not have waited a
full five minutes, and I suspect my "gently" is not her "gently" (I
admit to being a bit ham-handed). After three strikes, it is too much
to expect such a simple recipe to succeed.

I've used the same very rich cream successfully in similar recipes; no
cognac in this recipe.

Thanks for the input, Janet.

Tomas Goodlaxson wrote:
> Janet Puistonen wrote:
>> Tomas Goodlaxson wrote:
>>
>>> I haven't used this particular formula before, but it's a cake glaze
>>> from Rose Levy Beranbaum's "Cake Bible."
>>>
>>
>> RLB is completely reliable. Her book well deserves the title
>> "Bible." I wouldn't question her proportions when it comes to what
>> works well with cakes. In fact, I've made her cream glaze, and it
>> worked perfectly. I've used the book extensively, and always had
>> superb results. She is also unusual in that she gives some
>> technical detail about why she makes the choices she does.
>>
>
> Yes, I find her books excellent sources for understanding, beyond mere
> recipes. Although I still find her instructions for working pie dough
> in a plastic bag to be incomprehensible.

I've never tried her pastry book. I have another of her books that I got
virtually free--Melting Pot?--which is merely okay. (There's an excellent
recipe for grilled portabello mushroom caps in it.) But The Cake Bible is
indeed my cake bible. <G>