Best Easy White Chocolate Ganache Recipe

White chocolate ganache is a silky, smooth, luscious topping for cakes and a perfect filling for cupcakes, truffles, and other baked goods. It’s easy to make, whips up in a flash, and makes you look like you slaved away in the kitchen.

Serves: 14 ounces Time: 10 minutes Cookbook: Baking From My Home to Yours

Making your own ganache is a phenomenal way to take your baked goods to the next level. You can use it to glaze cakes and cupcakes, thicken it up into a frosting, use it for dipping fresh fruit, and use it as a filling for pies, tarts, cakes, and cupcakes.

As fancy as ganache looks, ganache recipes don’t have to be complicated. Today’s master recipe comes from a master baker, Dorie Greenspan. She worked with Julia Child to co-author Baking with Julia, she has a long list of prestigious awards, and she basically wrote the manual on baking.

Using her white chocolate ganache recipe has become our favorite way to make a white chocolate ganache drip, a white chocolate ganache frosting… in short, the perfect ganache.

Jump Ahead:

• ❤️ Why You’ll Love This Recipe
• 🍫 Ingredients Needed to Make White Chocolate Ganache
• 🍴 Equipment You’ll Need in the Kitchen
• 🥄 How to Make White Chocolate Ganache
• ♾️ Variations on White Chocolate Ganache
• ❓ White Chocolate Ganache: Tips, Tricks, and FAQs

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Simple: This ganache recipe only requires a few simple ingredients yet produces a perfect, flawless ganache you can use to fill muffins, top a drip cake, and more. This recipe is even step 1 of 2 for our white chocolate pretzels recipe!

Easy: There are only a few simple steps to make this ganache. It’s a surprisingly simple process to follow.

Delicious: This turns out a white chocolate ganache that is so silky smooth and decadent that you’ll be tempted to lick the bowl clean all by yourself!

Ingredients Needed to Make White Chocolate Ganache

• White Chocolate: Either white chocolate chips or white chocolate bars that you’ll chop up work for this recipe. Choose a good brand of white chocolate, as the better brands respond better during the ganache-making process.
• Heavy Whipping Cream: Whipping cream will dilute the white chocolate and turn it into a smooth, creamy mixture you can use for a wide assortment of decorating and baked goods.
• Unsalted Butter: Butter is the bit of magic that makes this recipe. You do not want butter with salt in it.

Equipment Needed In the Kitchen

Mixing Bowls

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1-Quart Saucepan

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Whisk

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• Heat-Safe Bowl: A heatproof bowl is essential for mixing white chocolate with boiled heavy whipping cream. Medium-to-large is a good size.
• Saucepan: A small saucepan is perfect for heating up the heavy whipping cream.
• Whisk: A whisk is the only hand tool you need, and it’s perfect for combining the chocolate, cream, and butter.

How to Make White Chocolate Ganache

White chocolate ganache is simple to make yet looks elegant when used to decorate cakes, cupcakes, and other baked goods. Follow these simple steps to prepare your own five-star ganache.

Prepare the chocolate

First up, the white chocolate. If using white chocolate chips, pour the correct amount into a heat-safe bowl and move on to the next step.

If using white chocolate bars, chop 10 ounces of chocolate into small pieces. This is the best way to ensure the amount of chocolate will melt when mixed with the boiling cream.

Boil the heavy whipping cream

Next up, place a small saucepan over medium heat and pour in the cream. Let it heat until it reaches a boil. Medium heat, not low heat or high heat, should be used to avoid the cream either not getting hot enough or getting too hot and scalding.

Combine the cream and chocolate

Pour the warm cream over the chocolate. Allow the mixture of chocolate and cream to sit for thirty seconds. Then, slowly stir the mixture together in a circular motion starting in the center and working your way to the edge.

This can also be done in a double boiler, with the chocolate in a metal bowl over a pot of boiling water, to keep the chocolate warm while mixing the cream.

When the mixture is smooth, add the butter a little bit at a time, stirring only as much as necessary to combine it.

If your butter doesn’t melt completely, place the entire bowl in the microwave for 5-second intervals. Mix after each interval. Stop mixing as soon as the butter is completely combined. The surface of the ganache should be perfectly smooth and shiny.

Use it or let it sit

Now you just need to decide how you want to use the ganache.

Using it as a glaze or a white chocolate ganache filling for a pie or tart? Use it right away for best results.

Using it as a filling for a cake, to frost a cake, or for another decorating purpose? Let it cool at room temperature until it reaches the right consistency for your needs. If you’re pressed for time, you can refrigerate it to cool it down, but keep an eye on it, or it will harden too quickly.

Variations on White Chocolate Ganache

This white chocolate ganache is the perfect recipe for a whole host of variations you can play around with. As with any variation, try this before you plan on serving it or using it to decorate baked goods to test it out.

Whipped White Chocolate Ganache: This is aaaamazing! Make the ganache as called for, then let cool to a solid but still soft consistency. Place the ganache into a stainless steel bowl and mix on high speed with a handheld electric mixer or a stand mixer until the ganache has roughly doubled.

Dark Chocolate Ganache: Use the same ratio of cream and chocolate as this recipe, but swap out the type of chocolate for dark. Follow the rest of the recipe as written. Pro tip: This is amazing drizzled over Libby’s Pumpkin Bread!

Milk Chocolate Ganache: Use the same amount of chocolate the recipe calls for but swap it for milk chocolate, and follow the rest of the steps. Chocolate melts or real chocolate can be used.

Peanut Butter White Chocolate Filling: For this deliciousness, use equal parts chocolate and peanut butter candy melts. Follow the rest of the recipe for the white chocolate version. When it cools into a thick consistency, use a silicon spatula and put it into a piping bag and pipe it into cupcakes, onto the top of a cake, or between cake layers. Pro tip: When still hot and glaze-like, this makes an amazing topping for ice cream.

White Chocolate Ganache: Tips, Tricks, and FAQs

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