How to Make a Deliciously Fruity Ganache with Ravifruit Purée
Fruity chocolates are popular all year round, and while many fruits are seasonal, there are several fantastic products that solve the problem and make it possible for chocolatiers to produce a specific flavoured bonbon at any time of year.
Ravifruit’s range of premium quality, all-natural ambient fruit purées is one of the best solutions for busy chefs and chocolatiers wanting to use real fruits in your recipes.
But what recipe should you use for your fruit ganache? There are a thousand different recipes and no one “right” way to do it.
However, there are some basic things to get right to ensure that your ganache is stable and that it has a balanced taste, a smooth consistency and mouth feel and a good shelf life.
What is a Ganache?
A ganache is a combination of chocolate and a liquid. Usually this liquid is cream, but it could be water, a fruit purée, or even wine or beer. The main ingredients of any ganache are therefore water, fat, sugars and dry substances.
A typical, high-quality, creamy ganache often has two-thirds of the fat as cocoa butter and the remaining one-third as butter (dairy) fat. Normally, the total fat content of a ganache would be between 25% and 40%. Sugar content should ideally be 75% of the water content.
Since water and fat repel each other, the water/fat ratio is very important to ensure that you will have a good “emulsion”.
The dry matter and the sugars bring the taste profile and also help to emulsify the water and fat molecules. Sugars are also often added to extend shelf life as they act as moisture stabilisers.
Fruit Ganache Recipes
Here are four basic recipes, all of which will act as a good starting point that you can then adapt according to the taste profile and fat content of your chocolate, the acidity of the fruit, the shelf life required, etc.
In these recipes, we’ve assumed that the chocolate used is one of Callebaut 811 Dark, Callebaut 823 Milk or Callebaut W2 White, all three of which have a total fat content of approximately 36%.
The average water content of the Ravifruit ambient fruit purées is 75%, so that’s what we’ve based the calculations on. Similarly, we’ve assumed a 35% fat cream with a water content of 60%.
Recipe 1
A nice stable, cream-based ganache with a good balance of creaminess and fruitiness. Excellent for strong acidic fruits such as passion fruit, as the cream softens the taste profile.
- 1500g chocolate
- 500g fruit purée
- 500g cream
Recipe 2
A really simple fruity ganache with lots of zing! However, the relatively low fat content may make the ganache less stable.
- 1500g chocolate
- 1000g fruit purée
Recipe 3
Again, a good fruity ganache with a richer, more rounded taste than Recipe 2. The added butter will improve the fat/water ratio and make the ganache more stable, giving it a shelf life of 1-2 weeks.
- 1500g chocolate
- 1000g fruit purée
- 400g butter
Recipe 4
For a longer shelf life, sugars can be added in addition to increasing the fats and reducing the water content. This recipe would have a shelf life of 10-12 weeks.
- 1100g chocolate
- 550g fruit purée
- 367g butter
- 220g dextrose
- 191g glucose syrup
- 73g cocoa butter
In each case, it is better not to boil or over-heat the purée as this can impair the flavour of the fruit. In the cream-based ganache, just heat the cream, melt in the chocolate and fold in the purée before blending with an immersion blender to create a smooth emulsion. Alternatively, put all the ingredients into a microwaveable bowl and heat in short bursts in order to melt the chocolate without losing temper. If your ganache is tempered, it will be more stable.
Ravifruit Fruit Purées
As Ravifruit’s distributor for England and Wales, we are delighted to offer their range of ambient fruit purées. These purées are 100% natural and are of an exceptionally high quality which you really have to taste to believe! They have a 12-month shelf life (ambient below 15°c) from date of production and a 3-day shelf life (refrigerated) once opened.
There are a number of great advantages when using an ambient purée:
- You don’t need to use up your valuable freezer space for storage.
- You don’t need to worry about defrosting it before use.
They are all available in 1 litre Variopak cartons but if you don’t think you will use the full litre within three days, then you can simply freeze what you don’t think you’ll use in ice trays as soon as you open the carton and save it for another time.
Shelf Life & Other Issues
Usually, the most important determinant of shelf life is the amount of ‘free’ or ‘available’ water (AW) in the ganache. If there is too much water, it can lead to separation of the fats and provide an environment for mould growth.
Water Activity (AW) is defined as the vapour pressure of water divided by that of pure water at the same temperature. In effect, it is a measure of the ‘free’ or ‘un-bonded’ water in a food product. The closer the AW is to 1, the more liable the product is to bacterial, fungal or mould growth. Typical AW values are 0.99 for raw meats, 0.95 for bread, 0.85 for cheese, 0.6 for dried fruit and 0.3 for biscuits. Solid chocolate has a very low AW and is therefore microbiologically stable. Bacteria usually require an AW of above 0.9 and most moulds require an AW of above 0.8. An AW of below 0.6 would prevent any microbiological spoilage at all and this is what is required if you want a 12-month shelf life at room temperature for your ganache. To lower AW, you need either to remove water, or bind it using agents such as sugars, or lower the temperature of the product.
One common way of reducing the AW of your chocolate centres is to add sugars. There are many sugars that can be added; glucose and sorbitol are the most common. Each sugar has different characteristics and differing levels of sweetness, so you may need to use a combination of sugars to achieve the best overall results. For instance, sorbitol is very good at binding the water and it is only half as sweet as normal sugar (sucrose), but too much can have a laxative effect!
Adding Alcohol to Your Fruit Ganache
Adding a fruit flavoured alcohol concentrate, such as Limoncello, Cointreau or Kirsch to your ganache will not only boost the fruitiness of the ganache, but also make it a really indulgent adult treat. Alternatively, you could use alcohols such as St. Remy XO Brandy, Amaretto and Mount Gay Rum to make delicious liqueur chocolates!
A further benefit of adding alcohol is that it will greatly increase shelf life by inhibiting mould growth. Remember that most concentrates still contain some water so you will probably have to replace some of the cream with the concentrate.
What to Watch and Read Next...
Our blog post Shelf Life of a Ganache: A Guide is a great starting point for chocolatiers looking to create delicious, long-lasting ganache, with a few tips and tricks for extending shelf life.
We recently hosted pastry chef Jean-François Devineau from Ravifruit in the Keylink Kitchen, and he showed us how to use Ravifruit ambient fruit purées to create various recipes, including an indulgent passion fruit ganache. Watch the live tutorial on the Keylink YouTube channel!
We were also recently joined by expert chocolatier Paul A. Young, who demonstrated his famous water ganache recipe. Find the video tutorial on YouTube.
And of course, our live video with the UK Chocolate Academy on Shelf Life in Chocolate Work is a fantastic resource for anyone wanting to learn more about shelf life and how to adapt recipes for a longer shelf life.
For further information, we recommend investing in Jean-Pierre Wybauw’s book Fine Chocolate 2 – Great Ganache Experience. This book provides much more detailed and invaluable information on a number of subjects including:
- The basic components of a ganache
- Curdling (fat separation) and how to avoid it
- Factors affecting shelf life
- Different sugars and their uses.
The book also has a very large number of new recipes, with an AW value for each one, which is particularly helpful because it allows you to estimate the shelf life of each product.
Please note that all recipe guidance and advice is given in good faith and that there are a number of factors, including hygiene standards, that can affect the quality and stability of your ganache.