In this cake video tutorial, I’m going to demonstrate how to frost a square cake with ganache…and how to sharpen up those edges & corners! ;0)
I just LOVE ganache. It tastes fabulous, it can be smoothed to a flawless finish, and when making a fondant covered cake, it provides the perfect foundation.
Square cakes do not have to have the super sharp edges that you see in our tutorial–I think that cakes with softer corners are beautiful also.
However, since the sharp corners are a little more tedious, and a little more sought after these days, we wanted to demonstrate the technique for you.
The cake that you’ll see in this tutorial will eventually be covered with fondant in another tutorial of ours. You can find it here: How to Cover a Square Cake with Fondant
Also, make sure to check out our Materials list below. We hope that you enjoy the video!
Materials
- Three 6 inch square cake layers (White Almond Sour Cream Recipe)
- Foam Core Cake Board, approximately ¼ inch larger than the size of the cake on each side. (Ours was a 6 ¼ inch board, but our cake layers shrunk to a little under 6″ during baking). Use a board that is approximately ¼-1/2 inch thick.
- Bench Scraper-One that has a handle that is not wider than your edge. (Mine has a curled handle which is nice)
- Turntable- Optional but always helpful!
- Simple, Spreadable Ganache– We used a 2:1 ratio of dark chocolate (60% cocoa) to heavy cream.
- Spatula for spreading the ganache
- Right Angle Straight Edge- Optional
- Pot of hot water to heat your bench scraper
- Bubble Level- Optional
Notes
Remember to check out our Simple Spreadable Ganache post in the Recipes section for preparation details & additional notes! When using white or milk chocolate, you’ll need to use at least a 3:1 ratio of chocolate to cream.
This technique for applying ganache to a square cake does take some practice and patience, but it is not difficult once you get the hang of it! It may take a few tries before it comes naturally, but don’t give up ;0)!
** There are a couple of popular blog tutorials that are so creative and well done when it comes to techniques on getting smooth cakes with sharp corners.
One is a tutorial by Jeff Arnett which you can find HERE on Cake Central.
The other is a very cool technique as featured on Not Quite Nigella’s blog as taught to her by decorator Faye Cahill. You can see it HERE! With this method, you would have a board both on top and bottom to guide you. I hope you’ll experiment and find what works best for you!
Can you show us how to plastic wrap cakes after filling? You mention that you did so in the first few seconds of the video.
I have seen some videos where decorators plastic wrap iced cakes, I never understand how that is possible.
Please explain.
Hi Bee– Thanks for your question. If you click the link below and skip forward to the 13:10 mark, I show applying plastic wrap and a “weight” (a book) to a cake which then settles overnight. The same would apply in this case, except I did not crumb coat. I only filled the layers. The plastic wrap keeps the cake from drying out.
https://www.mycakeschool.com/video-tutorials/crumb-coat/
If you add plastic wrap to a frosted cake, you would either wait until the cake is crusted if it is a crusting buttercream, or you would chill the cake for a few minutes, then cover with plastic wrap and return to the fridge. Hope this helps! It’s important for the cakes to settle before applying the final coat of frosting so that you don’t have bulging issues later.
Great video as always, Melissa! I love working with ganache. My only question is did you cut the foam core board yourself? If so, how did you get it so straight? I don’t think I could do that. Do we ever get to see the mysterious BeBe? Love her voice ☺
Hi Donna, I cut the foam core and it is a smooth cut because I have a mat cutter, I used to frame pictures. Of course, not many people have that and foam core is difficult to cut. Here are 2 links that I hope will help you, the one using the sewing machine is very interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTUtgSYdZkc
http://www.ehow.com/list_7363814_tips-cutting-foam-core.html
Is there a difference between frosting with ganache or buttercream (a pure butter no shortening one)?
I have never used ganache before and with heating the bench scraper it seems to work well. With a coloured buttercream I notice when I heat my bench scraper then the colour fades where heated. How can I avoid this or use this method with a coloured buttercream? Thanks
never used a ganache before. Can’t wait to try it. Thanks for this video.
Hi there, thank you so much for the fabulous video. I have my first wedding cake due next week and it happens to be a three tier square cake!!! I’m a little worried about achieving the sharp edges, but I’m going to give it a try…. I’m just wondering with your chocolate ganache recipe used in the video, can I use Hershey’s pure semi-sweet chocolate chips? Thanks
Carol
Hi Carol, I haven’t tried Hershey’s. We get best results when using a chocolate that has at least 53 % cocoa. I have used Ghirardelli baking chips that is 60 % cacao and also chocolate from Trader Joe’s ( hope one is near you) that is called Pound Plus dark chocolate. If Hershey’s has that percentage cocoa (or more) you should be fine. Always let the ganache come to room temperature on its own, trying to speed up the process with refrigeration always causes problems for us. Good luck with your cake.
how mcug ganush do you need to cover a 8 inch cake how much chocolate do i need
where do you get the foamcoare board
Hi Sarah, if you are making a 3 layer 8 inch round cake you will need 7 ounces of ganache per layer….that would be 21 ounces of ganache. Using the 2 to 1 ratio (2 parts chocolate to 1 part heavy cream) to make ganache…….you would use 14 ounces dark chocolate to 7 ounces heavy cream.
Foam core can be found at craft stores also online. It is difficult to cut but you could have it cut at an art shop, you could also buy it there but it may be more expensive. Look above to a post I made on Feb. 9th. I post links to cutting foam core.
Hi melissa – i see you use 54% drk choc , is it ok to use 74% as i cant get seem to find 54% ??
Thanks
Anne marie x
Hi Anne Marie, Yes, you can use 74%, the percentage refers to the amount of cocoa in the chocolate. I have used 70% and it had a nice deep flavor without being bitter. I think you will be fine with 74%, though it is always personal preference when it comes to taste.
Hi. It says “video not found”. Am I not doing something right?
Hi Michelle- I’ve just updated the format for you. If you are getting a lot of these messages, you may want to check to see if an update is available for your device or browser. We are going through and updating all of our videos to this same format but there are lots of videos to work through. In the meantime, an update should help all of the videos to appear for you no matter what format they are in. Let us know if there are others that you cannot see and we’ll bump them to the top of our list!
Hi, Melissa.
Thank you so much for updating the video! I can watch it with no problem now. I will still go ahead and see if an update is available for my iPad. Love the site, and love being a member. Thanks again.
Great, glad that you can see it! xoxo
Hi Melissa,
I’m making a double barrel 8 inch square cake that will measure 12 -13 inches in height.
I’m also making a 12 inch round that will be 6 inches in height.
Could you suggest how much ganache to make for each cake. I’m new at this!
Thanks in advance!
Kathy
Hi Kathy, I like The Ganacherator for figuring out approximate ganache amounts. It’s a free download that allows you to put in the height and width of your cake, the kind of ganache you are wanting to make, and then it calculates the amount of cream and chocolate needed. (This is based on a 2:1 ratio of chocolate to cream for dark or semi-sweet chocolate, and 3:1 ratio of chocolate to cream for white or milk chocolate).
https://www.theganacherator.com/download
Hi again! Thanks for the gancherator link! 3 more questions if you don’t mind.
1- I tried your ganache recipe. In 2 hours of cooling it reached a peanut butter consistency. I used 2 lb of trader joes dark chocolate which I broke into small pieces with 16 ounces of heavy whipped cream which I carefully brought up to 205 degrees Fahrenheit. meaning the cream was real close to the 212 boiling point. I forgot to allow the cream to sit in the chocolate for a few minutes, instead I immediately began stirring keeping the spatula in the middle. I put a wet dishtowel in a ziplok and heated it to warm to wrap around the glass mixing bowl when I thought the sides were cooling down before the lumps were melted. The finished chocolate was smooth and silky. I covered it (the surface) with plastic wrap and within 2 hours it reached a beautiful peanut butter consistency. But the next day it had hardened bigtime. After microwaving it with short bursts it finally softened but then it would harden up right away which would be impossible to try to ice a cake with. Did the cream need to reach the 212 degree boiling point or the fact that I forgot to allow the chocolate to sit in the cream for a few minutes cause the problem?
2-I have a request to use milk chocolate ganache under my fondant as the dark chocolate is not sweet enough. Will it hold up as well?
3-In your video I noticed you did not spray the cake layers with simple syrup. Is there a specific reason for that?
Again, thanks in advance!
Hi Kathy, I’m sorry that you’ve had this problem. How frustrating! It’s not unusual for ganache to firm up overnight- and the temperature of your house could also factor in how firm the ganache becomes.
The cream not reaching 212 degrees and not allowing the chocolate to sit for a few minutes should not have caused this.
We’ve had ganache firm up overnight but after microwaving in small increments to warm it, we didn’t have issues with frosting the cake. However if your kitchen is cold, you may need to pop it back in the microwave now in then to revive it it becomes too firm.
The way you describe it, as hardening immediately, makes me wonder if somehow the ganache became too hot in the microwave and that caused it to break.
We don’t have an involved video on making ganache (and we should make one) but in the meantime, over the years we’ve switched over to using the microwave for making our ganache most of the time. We use the same method as described in the video linked below by Inspired by Michelle if you’d like to see.
As for your milk chocolate ganache, that would be fine too although we use a 3:1 ratio of chocolate to cream when making milk chocolate or white chocolate ganache.
Finally, we don’t use a simple syrup for our cakes as we don’t find that we need them- but a lot of bakers and decorators do this and that is fine too! ;0)
— Let us know how it goes!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFtm8q4m4Bk
Melissa thank you so much for your comments! They are so very helpful. Have you ever tried using a stiff ganache to form a well for the cake filling? I am not able to settle the house shaped cake because of its irregular shape so I thought there’d be a better chance that the buttercream filling wouldn’t seep out if the well was made of ganache. What are your thoughts on this? Kathy
Hi Kathy, yes you can use ganache (just the regular frosting consistency that you are using for your cake is fine)- to create dams for your filling- I’ve done this many times with good results! ;0)