Ganache is two ingredients. Chocolate and cream, brought together until they emulsify into something glossy and thick — that is the whole recipe, and it is the finish on nearly every cake we make. What changes is the ratio of one to the other, and what you do to it afterwards.
If you are learning technique rather than just eating the result, ganache is the best place to start, because the same two ingredients can behave like a glaze, a filling, a truffle or a mousse depending on decisions you make in the first ten minutes.
Why the ratio decides everything
More chocolate to cream gives you a firmer set: something you can slice cleanly, pipe into a shell, or roll. More cream gives you a softer, pourable ganache that settles into a smooth coat as it cools. Neither is more correct than the other; they are answers to different questions. The dark chocolate ganache that encases the Prestige Coconut Cake has to hold a sharp edge on a 25cm cake. The white chocolate ganache that envelops the Lemonade Cake has to stay silky against a tart lemon custard without going stiff.
Ganache montée, the version most people have not met
Ganache montée — whipped ganache — is the same emulsion taken one step further. You make it, you rest it cold so the fat crystallises properly, and then you whip it. It takes in air and turns pale, light and mousse-like, holding its shape when piped while tasting far less dense than the ganache it started as.
The clearest example in our cabinet is the Carolina choux: choux pastry, pronounced "shoo", filled with dulce de leche mousse, then layered with a dark chocolate ganache montée and finished with roasted white chocolate and salted caramel. Eaten side by side with a firm-set ganache, the difference is obvious in a way no description manages — one coats the tongue, the other dissolves.
Where to taste each kind
- Dulce Caramel Cake — dark chocolate ganache over dulce de leche.
- Snow White Chocolate Cake — white chocolate ganache with house-made white chocolate petals.
- Jaffa Orange Chocolate Cake — dark ganache on an orange sponge, as a 20cm loaf or a 25cm bundt.
- Peanut Butter Cake — peanut butter ganache. It contains peanuts, plainly stated.
- Chocolate Mini Cake and Sunrise Mini Cake — chocolate ganache and a vanilla white chocolate ganache.
- Nutella Mini Cake — Nutella white chocolate ganache on a ground hazelnut base made with no added gluten. Our kitchen is small and without exclusive production areas for all of our different recipes, so traces may occur, and nothing is guaranteed safe for severe coeliac disease.
Why ganache is the house finish
We do not use fondant and we do not use added colourings. Every cake in the layer cake range is finished in ganache and chocolate elements, which is also why we work from existing designs rather than taking bespoke decoration briefs. A ganache finish has to taste of something. Fondant does not, which is the honest reason it is popular. The trade is that you choose from what we already make well, from $95, with a 15cm serving 12 to 15, a 20cm serving 20 to 25, and a 25cm serving 30 to 35.
Learning it with someone else
Our public classes are capped at four people, which is small enough that you watch Dhi's hands rather than a screen. There is a chocolate class with tempering, cake decorating across three levels, and choux and tart classes. Take two of the four seats and bring the person you actually bake with — you will spend the following month arguing about ratios, which is the point. For a lighter version, the mini-cake decorating challenge is $65 per person for groups of four to twelve, Tuesday to Friday between 11am and 4pm.
Ordering and collection
Cabinet items such as the Carolina and the rest of the mini desserts need no notice — walk in and choose. Anything made to order, including layer cakes and trays from the mini cake range, needs two days, and the checkout date picker only shows dates the kitchen can meet. We are pickup only from our patisserie inside The Welder on Welles Street, open 10am to 6pm Tuesday to Friday and 10am to 3pm Saturday.
