Can we embrace mistakes or the pursuit of perfection can’t abide them in our life? Let’s make chocolate Ganache that will help us enjoy life!

There is no more beautiful look on a cake than the sparkling sunshine reflections on the pouring chocolate layer. It’s quite controversy though.

What makes the perfect cake?

The final touch, the one step the determines praise or pity a chef can get from his or her audience is condensed into a thin layer of cocoa mixture. One hesitant thought, a tremble of hands all it takes to get the pitying ‘Don’t worry it still taste good’ or the ‘Best cake ever’.

Making ‘the best cake ever’ instantly justify the hours spent standing by the kitchen counter, devising elaborate techniques to craft our masterpiece. The painstaking precision to shape the layers to the smoothness that would even please the master sculptors of Greek gods, turns into hardly noticeable smiles at the end of our lips and fill our eyes with faintly recognizable pride.

The agony through the never-ending minutes while the cake was in the oven, watching over a glass pane out of our power to help it -like mother who first let her child into the kindergarten, unsure if the child can cope of the cruelness of the world- suddenly dissipates into joyful relief and we can bath in the glory of our greatness.

What’s under the glaze?

Yet, as parents are aware of the character flaws of their children -or should be- we are aware of those nasty corners or broken bits of pastry that trying to ruin our strive for greatness. A clumsily removed spring form or hastily cut cake layer could easily leave a dent, not only on the final results of the cake but on our reputation too.

Luckily, unlike the sculptors of Greek gods, we have a bit more jiggling room to chisel out our masterpiece and we can even stick back parts of the cake if needs arise. But just like character flaws can’t be eliminated, we can’t make mistakes invisible, once someone digs deeper to find them.

On the surface though, we can smooth out things and still live a happy fulfilling life where we can accept, look over or even embrace one’s imperfections as their virtue. It’s much easier to embrace the filling-soaked cracks of our almost failed cake than the tantrums of our child but with enough Ganache everything is possible.

What is Ganache?

Ganache is made of chocolate and cream. Normally, it is made by heating equal parts of chocolate and cream, warming the cream first, then mixing in the chocolate. Butter can be added to give the Ganache a shiny appearance and smooth texture.

If we use the Ganache as a filling or to make truffles then two parts of chocolate and one part of cream can be used and that will produce stiffer results thanks to the chocolate’s ability to solidify.

For glazes, using dark chocolate the one-to-one ratio is the standard ratio while using white chocolate requires three parts of white chocolate and one part of cream.

If we let the Ganache cool a bit then we can increase its volume by whipping it and use it for icing too.

So, it seems that Ganache is a really versatile ingredient that can be used as a glaze, icing, filing or even as standalone dessert. But if we really strive to achieve the status reserved for only a few then we use Ganache as parents use their love to hold the family together and cover our masterpieces with a shine of perfection like a mirror glaze.

Ingredients

1 cup / 250ml Heavy cream
8⅓ oz / 250g Baking chocolate (use diet appropriate chocolate, for sugar free baking chocolate consider adding sweetener to taste)