manámaná

A few days ago I decided to honour the presence of an old friend of mine who comes on vacations to Granada from Minneapolis. She is a woman, a great cook and has a sweet-tooth just like me, so I had a deep look at three new cups I wanted to première and dived into mi large list of recipes to try looking for something with a few ingredients and adaptive, fast to cook, with chocolate and that we could eat cold to sweeten the hot of Andalusia’s summers. The resulting cream-nearly-mousse is not only delicious but a basic recipe for making other more elaborated, such as the Chocolate and Vietnamese Coffee Tart (learn the definition of ganache at Videojug from Abbey Zegar, an Executive Pastry Chef).

175 gr chocolate for desserts
125 ml heavy cream
50 gr margarine (in the original recipe, butter)

preparation

Put the butter in a saucepan and cook with low heat until melted, add the cream slowly stirring continuously. When they are well mixed add the chocolate broken into irregular pieces and continue stirring while boiling for two minutes. Pour the mix into recipients and let at least for 4 hours in the fridge. Decorate when serving.

extras

As you can see in the photos I didn’t have time to decorate this dessert in all its glorious flavor. I just had a bit of white chocolate so I grated them over the ganache when it was already cold. If you have time to complicate this recipe you can make, for instance, some of the following things:
>> add ½ teaspoon of cayenne, coffee, cinnamon or vanilla extract (without sugar).
>> put in the bottom of the recipients a piece of sponge cake (obviously unfrosted) of a cookie, and pouring the mix over with the help of a spoon in order the cake remains at the bottom of the recipient.
>> let’s warm it up: moisture that cake with a bit of alcohol (the measures to moisture a classic cake are: half a glass of water, a teaspoon of sugar if you like, and approximately two spoons of your favourite liquor, from rum to Cointreau). But, remember, just a little bit or both the cake and the ganache will get soaked!
>> whipped cream, with or without sugar. Not iced because the ganache will not support its weight.
>> over the whipped cream: cinnamon or cocoa powder, sugar or grated chocolate in all their varieties.
>> strawberries, raspberries and other fresh fruits of your preference.
>> and now for making it spectacular: orange or lemon skins, natural or caramelized, meringue, dried and grated nuts, caramel, syrups or melted chocolate over the whipped cream of vanilla syrup over the ganache’s surface drawing motifs with a knife...

alternatives

One day I saw Jamie Oliver using a ganache for filling pies, the he covered them with raspberries and put a the top a lot of whipped cream. It was really sinful! ;)

Remember that if you are planning to fill pastry with the ganache the dough must be baked with a think bottom in order it no gets too moistured by the ganache.