I first developed this recipe when competing in the Annual Awards Of Excellence, one of the tasks was moulded raspberry truffles, I’m not going to cover moulded chocolates now, I’ll save it for another day but the good thing about this ganache is that it can be used for anything you like, not just truffles! I’ve included my favourite recipes using raspberry ganache in this post but really you can use it for whatever you like!
Coming up we’ve got my raspberry ganache recipe, truffles and for paid subscribers a chocolate & raspberry tart and a choc red wine cake. So let’s get going with our raspberry party 🎉.
Because of the acidity in raspberry puree raspberry ganache is never going to be perfectly silky smooth like other ganaches and can often have a bit of a grainy texture, I really wanted to make this ganache as smooth and creamy as possible so this recipe went through a lot of iterations before I was finally happy with it. For the actual competition I strained the raspberry puree through a cheesecloth to make it super smooth, unless you have unlimited time on your hands, I wouldn’t bother with this step.
The other problem I found when developing this recipe was getting enough raspberry flavour, when I substituted all of the liquid for puree, the flavour would be nice and strong but the compromise on texture was too much I found that a combination of raspberry puree, crème fraîche and cream gave the perfect balance of creaminess but I still felt that the raspberry flavour was a bit lacking, this is where the star anise and Chambord come in! Now I know that technically Chambord is a blackberry liqueur but the flavour works so well in this recipe, it really boosts the raspberry and brings everything together, if you don’t want to use alcohol you can just substitute it for the same amount of raspberry puree. The star anise also work to add depth of flavour, I know they can be quite overpowering but don’t be scared off by them, once everything is combined you can barely taste it at all, they work more as a seasoning than a main ingredient.
Onto variations! The beauty of ganache is that you can infuse the cream with almost anything to incorporate different flavours, pink peppercorns, cardamom, tarragon and orange zest all work great with this recipe as well as a drop of rose extract if you’re into floral flavours, just make sure that if you’re infusing the cream with other flavours you re-weigh it!
Ingredients - makes enough for 30 truffles AND a tart OR one cake
150g double cream
7g whole star anise (it looks like a lot but don’t worry!)
Pinch of salt
100g crème fraîche
200g 70% dark chocolate
200g milk chocolate
180g raspberry puree
45g butter
40g Chambord
Method
Toast the star anise in a pan until fragrant.
Add the double cream & salt, bring to the boil and leave to infuse for at least an hour.
Melt the chocolates together and set aside.
Remove the star anise from the cream and re-weigh it.
Boil the infused cream, pour over the melted chocolate and stir.
Add the crème fraîche and butter and stir until combined.
Add the puree and Chambord, at this stage if it starts setting you might need to give it 20 seconds in the microwave just to loosen it.
Finally blend with a hand blender, this ensures it’s perfectly smooth!
Cover with clingfilm and leave to set or use straight away.
Truffles
A super easy way of using the chocolate ganache with an option to make them extra special with the addition of some raspberry gel. Although I recommend covering them in tempered chocolate, if you’re not comfortable with tempering they can be covered in melted chocolate, they’ll still taste great, they just might look a little streaky and have a less crisp outer shell. To cover this up I recommend dusting with some freeze dried raspberry powder.
Ingredients
1/2 batch raspberry ganache
300g dark chocolate
Red lustre dust (optional)
Freeze dried raspberry powder (optional)
Leave the ganache in the fridge to set overnight.
Scoop and ball up the ganache, I weighed mine at 10-12g each, this ganache can be quite sticky!
Leave the balled up truffles to set in the fridge for a few hours or overnight.
Temper or melt 300g of dark chocolate, I used a fruity 70% chocolate.
This is where it gets messy! Cover the balls of ganache with chocolate, I try to keep one hand for chocolate and one hand for picking the truffles up to keep mess to a minimum. Roll the truffles around in a chocolatey hand and place them on baking paper to set or dust them with freeze dried raspberry powder.
Leave to set in the fridge.
Use a soft brush to dust with red lustre dust.
Store in the fridge fo up to two weeks.
Raspberry Gel
To level this ganache up I like to pair it with a raspberry gel, the sharp fruitiness really brings the ganache to life. I like to add a little blob on top of my truffles and use it in my raspberry chocolate tart. If you want you can replace this with raspberry jam or leave it out all together!