The call for a Vegan Ganache Recipe is now bigger than ever!
Those luscious Drip Cakes started trending several years ago and don’t show signs of stopping.
The good news is, a perfect vegan ganache recipe is not too much different that when we used to make it before being vegan!
It is still just two simple ingredients whisked together to perfect shiny perfection!
However when making a vegan ganache recipe, the plant milk alternatives we are using now are slightly thinner and way less fat than traditional cow cream from our past lives.
So we have to reduce the amount of milk by a small amount to compensate for that discrepancy.
Normally the ratio for a standard ganache is 1:1.
Meaning if you have a pound of chocolate you would use a pound (or a pint) of cream for a 1:1 ratio of cream to chocolate.
There are two ways to go about actually mixing those two ingredients together to form what is known as an emulsion.
An emulsion is a mixture of two or more liquids that are normally immiscible.
The idea of mixing 2 ingredients,while simple as it sounds, is not always so easy.
Mixing chocolate and liquid together is similar to mixing oil and water.
This is not something that is naturally occurring.
So the process of mixing two other wise UN-Mixable ingredients is called EMULSIFICATION.
Think Oil and Vinegar.
These two ingredients will just float on top of the other unless we shake it up and then pour it on our salad, right?
With a little help from heat and agitation we can achieve a beautiful emulsion.
So the ways to go about making your vegan ganache recipe is either:
#1- Boil the plant milk and pour it over the fine chopped chocolate in a bowl and whisk smooth until melted and emulsified
Or my preferred method:
#2- Combine the plant milk with the chocolate in a heavy bottom sauce pot and heat over low flame while stirring constantly with a whisk to melt the chocolate while creating the emulsion.
Keep in mind that chocolate is very temperature sensitive.
Anyone who has ever over heated chocolate during the melting process has learned this first hand when the lovely chocolate has seized into a solid grainy, unusable mess right before their eyes!
Not to mention chocolate and liquids are enemies which is why many people question the idea of this recipe in the first place!
Most people say, “But I thought you can’t add liquids to chocolate!”
This is true, however in the correct ratios liquid and chocolate are the best of friends!
But be forewarned, if you throw off the ratio of liquid to chocolate (typically it is on the side of not enough liquid to chocolate) you will also be met with a clumpy seized up mess!
So the moral of the story is to follow the recipe ratios below, pick your favorite mix method and then adjust the results as needed to suit your particular project!
I like a thinner ganache for covering cakes like here on my Almond Joy Cake.
And I can achieve this by adding just another tablespoon or two of plant milk to the ganache for a much better, pourable consistency.
I will note here that I always use soy milk for my vegan ganache recipe.
It is the thickest, the most most stable with the least amount of stablilizers (typically) and it has the most fat and protein of all the milks!
For a thicker (standard ratio as listed below) you will get the best consistency for those famous drips!
I will often times add just a teaspoon of melted coconut oil to the ganache for a shiny, no crack look actually keeps it looking fresh on the cake for days!
The Best Chocolate to Use for Making a Vegan Ganache Recipe
I can get Baker’s Brand Chocolate easily at my local supermarket and find this is really great for making ganache.
I’ve linked it here only so you can see the brand not so much as a requirement to buy it because Amazon is way more expensive than what I pay for the Baker’s brand in the supermarket which is usually just $2.59 and sometimes cheaper.
It really isn’t necessary to use an expensive chocolate here, and quite frankly in the bakery I would buy a grade of chocolate specifically labeled “Ganache Chocolate”.
It was definitely cheaper and who doesn’t love cheaper?
So save your Endangered Species and Green & Black chocolates for your fancy desserts and use good old baker’s brand for the ganache.
And don’t forget to look at the ingredients list for the chocolate to make sure there is not milk added into it!
We all know how they like to sneak milk into just about everything!
When it comes to making white chocolate ganache, this is a bit more delicate of a process.
Many people have a hard time working with white chocolate in the first place due to the fact that it is essentially all cocoa butter and a large amount of sugar without any cocoa liquor in it at all!
So is it even really chocolate?
We’ll leave that topic for another day!
You can make White Chocolate Ganache easily but it is necessary to reduce the plant milk amounts even more to compensate for the added fat content in that type of chocolate.
I usually start with 4 ounces of melted white chocolate and add 3 tablespoons of warmed almond milk to that, stirring more than heating since white chocolate is the ultimate in sensitive ingredients!
Before you know it you can burn your white chocolate beyond recognition!
So always stir and heat less!
It will take time but patience is the key to success in a beautiful vegan ganache!
CHECK OUT THE FULL YOUTUBE VIDEO STEP BY STEP VISUAL TUTORIAL FOR HOW TO MAKE A VEGAN GANACHE RECIPE
For a softer setting ganache you will use more milk and for a firmer ganache you will use less milk.
See below for White Chocolate Ganache notes
- 12 ounces of semi sweet vegan chocolate
- 8 ounces (1 cup) of milk alternative.* I prefer soy, almond and oat milks for their highest fat content of all the milk alternatives
- Heat the chocolate and milk together in a small sauce pot and stir (whisk) constantly over medium heat - stir constantly to avoid scorching the chocolate!
- Alternatively you can bring the milk to a boil then pour over the chocolate in a bowl- whisk smooth as shown in the video tutorial.
Too much agitation will cause rapid cooling to below 90 degrees F which will produce an GRAINY ganache.- Temperature is an important factor in emulsification of ganache. The optimal temperature is 90 degrees F to 110 degrees F.
- If the temperature rises above 110 degrees F, the cocoa butter in the chocolate gets too hot and the fats will pool together and separate. This is what causes a "broken" ganache.
Repairing a Broken Ganache:
Divide the entire portion of broken ganache into 2 parts.
Warm 1 part over a double boiler to about 130 degrees F.
This will cause the fats to re-melt making the mixture thinner.
Take the other portion of ganache and cool it to 60 degrees F over an Ice Bath causing the fats to solidify making the mixture thicker.
Once you have reached desired temperature with both portions, remove the 1 portion from the ice water bath (to avoid any water splashing) and slowly begin streaming the hot ganache mixture into the cold mixture while stirring gently.
Double like Truely I say
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge as pastry chef. I enjoy learning every time from you. God bless you.
Hi! Help please!! I really need your expertise Gretchen.
I have 375g of cheap dark cooking chocolate. Firstly is dark cooking chocolate ok? Does it need to have a certain % of cocoa to work well?
So would I use about 185g/ml of soy milk or almond milk or would coconut cream work better?
What size cake would this cover?
Can it be used under fondant?
Oh thank you in advance. I’m in a muddle!!
Hi Nereda! Yes the chocolate you have is fine (perfect actually) For ganache I typically use a 56% but honestly 60% or 70% is fine too it just depends on how bitter (or sweet) you want your ganache.
Yes your calculations are correct for the ganache
Thankyou for your reply! I’ll give it a whirl! Fingers crossed it all works.
White chocolate has cream in it. How is this vegan?
This is Vegan White Chocolate, you have to read labels as a vegan, LOL I spend half my life reading labels now.. haha.
CLICK HERE FOR VEGAN WHITE CHOCOLATE
Where do you buy vegan semi sweet chips
When I was in NJ Wegmans has them!! They are so amazing & great & cheap LOL I bought a bunch…. now that I’m running out (and no longer in NJ!!) I’m not sure what I will do!!
Guittard semisweet chocolate chips are vegan, fair trade, non-GMO and they taste fantastic! They also have vegan “super cookie chips” that are larger and disc shaped. You can find them at most mainstream grocery stores and they’re even less expensive at Target stores.
Thank you for the recipe, delicious and works well!
Hi Gretchen. Thanks for your amazing site and videos. I want to make (vegan) white chocolate and coconut truffles. I would like to use coconut cream/milk. Will I be able to just heat the coconut cream straight from can then add it to the chopped white chocolate or do I need to stick the can in the fridge overnight and then just heat up the separated fat? Can you also provide the ratios? I want the truffles to be solid at room temperature. Thanks
Hi Sure! CLICK HERE
Hi! Peanut milk is OK? Or has it too much fat on it? Thank you!
Yes would be great!
I have a vegan bakery. Do you recommend that for ganache for piping purposes I use coconut cream instead of almond or soy . Can I use compound chocolate for making piping ganache?
Coconut milk is fine for ganache, and I do not use compound chocolate for anything but coating. I prefer to use couverture.
grat recepie. can we referiderage the ganache and freeze it?
yes, then bring to room temperature before remelting
I’m just thrilled that I don’t need to use heavy cream!!!
Will my low-fat soy milk work, or should I get full fat?
Thank you. It would be great if I could maybe add vegan margarine and not need to buy anything special!
Xo
I use the full fat soy milk for the best thickest ganache, but if you use the low fat an addition of margarine would be a good idea! (I guess it’s 6 in 1 – half a dozen in the other! right?)
Hi Gretchen, I am wanting to generously frost 12 cupcakes with your ganache but have no idea how much chocolate/vegan milk I would need to do this, could you please advise quantities? Thanks 🙂
If you could determine how much “generously” means to you, (let’s say for example 2 ounces per cupcake?) then you would need a total of 24 ounces of ganache.
That would be 16 ounces of chocolate and about 8-10 ounces of plant milk. (since I do about a 2:1 Ratio for vegan ganaches)
** I would also add about a tablespoon of coconut oil as this will help it from drying out, I have been finding vegan ganaches (especially drips) to get cracked and dry looking, this will help
Thanks so much for your advice, I will give this a go 🙂
Hi you said in one of your comments you do a 2:1 ratio chocolate to liquid and add in coconut oil 1tbsp, can u use vegetable oil instead? Just for a heads up would 200g to 100g ganache be morw than enough to pour over a 4″ cake? And then increase by 100g for every other size, example from a 4″ to a 6″?
Yes the oil is to just add some fat (that would normally be from the heavy cream) so yes. Yes that seems to be a good quantity!
Hi there Gretchen – thanks so much for all the great recipes. Can this ganache be used under fondant?
You are so welcome! YES It can!
Hello Gretchen! First, have to say how amazing your recipes are (I actually did a happy dance for the eclair recipe, (on that note, for the Vegan Egg formula change, a fix that worked for me was to just ‘egg wash’ the piped pastries with the prepared egg per the package instructions)). Anyway, my actual question is about whipped ganache. What would you recommend for this, coconut milk (without refrigeration), coconut cream (from the top of a refrigerated can of coconut milk), or even just the coconut whipping cream (by Nature’s Charm)? And would the ratio stay 4 oz cream:8 oz chocolate? Also, if I were to do a white whipped ganache, would the ratio then be 2 oz cream:8 oz white chocolate? Sorry this is a lot of questions. Thank you!
Hi Thanks! Yeah what disappointment with that eclair recipe! Ugggh.
A non vegan whipped ganache is made my boiling the heavy cream, adding to the chocolate (in different ratios for whipped of course than it would be for a drip or truffle ganache) and then whipping it when it is cold – since th ratios are different it stay quite liquid and able to whip nicely.
I have not done this with vegan ganache at all, so I am not quite sure what the ratio would need to be without doing some testing.
Hi Gretchen ,
I am supposed to make a dairy free egg free cake for a kid with severe allergies – do you have a good chocolate recipe which tastes good as well? Second , what kind of buttercream will you suggest ? I will be using began butter . The cake needs a purple drip as well. Your article states that for 8oz we need 4 oz of coconut milk or soy or almond milk- which one is better ? Can I add purple Chefmasters gel color to it ? I hope your able to help me as I am
Horribly lost and want to make a pretty trolls cake !
Hi Yes the best easiest cake here CLICK HERE
CLICK HERE for buttercream recipes, (I use the American style one all the time)
I prefer Soy milk for the ganache it has the highest fat which is necessary for this to be great.
If you are making chocolate ganache though, (white I assume??) could get tricky. I would say to do a sugar drip or royal icing instead- much easier to work with CLICK HERE
Hi!
Thanks for this article. You’ve been super helpful in my transition to Vegan. I want to make a cake with white ganache. I’m going to use full fat coconut milk. Is the ratio 2:1? Any suggestions?
I live in a very hot place, does this ganache sweat? does it melt?
Hi Great and THANK YOU TOO! Yes this will be fine, the ganache will sweat mostly if it is in a super cold refrigerator and then goes (quickly) to extreme hot temperatures. Chocolate typically starts to melt in 90F
Hi Gretchen, Thank you for what you do!!! Your vegan items are especially awesome! I need to use dairy free chocolates, due to allergies in our home. That being said, I noticed you use Baker’s Brand Chocolate in this formula for your vegan ganache. The label on this chocolate says it may contain milk. Can I use the Nestle Simply Delicious dairy free semi-sweet chips (53% cacao)? would I still use 2:1 chocolate/ratio
Hi Thanks! (and thanks for your support 🙂
I use Bakers Brand yes, it does NOT contain milk in the Unsweetened, Semi-Sweet or Bittersweet varieties, but since they do make White & Milk chocolates they will warn (as many companies who process similar items on same equipment) that they have to say “may contain” due to cross contamination.
While chips are made to “NOT Melt” (they are meant to keep their shape in cookies mostly) I do not use chips, however many people do in ganache recipes, so yes by all means try it.
Check out this post for more information about ganache and chocolate in general (*yes it is a tempering video but it has alot of good information 🙂
CLICK HERE
Hi Gretchen!
I was looking at the comments on how to make your aquafaba Swiss merengue into chocolate Swiss merengue and I’m planning on using the ganache method explained above. If I add it in and find that the frosting is too soft or runny could I add more powdered sugar? Any suggestions?
Can this ganache be used for frosting and truffles?
YES!
Hello! I only found light coconut milk. Can i still make the ganache? should i make any alterations to the original recipe? I hope you will see this! thank you
yes will be fine
can you please send me the link to the white chocolate ganache .thank you. we get compund white choclate here,can i addsomething else for incresing the fat content?
HI! I’ve made ganache before using dairy ingredients (before switching over to plant-based eating) and it came out great. The recipe that I used called for 8 oz of dark/semi-sweet chocolate and 8 oz of heavy cream to make 1 pint of ganache. Now that I am vegan, how would I go about adjusting the amount of milk? I’m using unsweetened vanilla almond milk, which isn’t high in fat, so would I need to add oil? If so, how much and what kind? Thank you!
Hi There, you are on the Vegan Ganache recipe article, I think (? thought?) I clarified that here?
As there is a vegan recipe ratio here on this very article