My favorite thing about this time of the year is that I can finally use my kitchen not just as a production space (bye, Holiday craziness!), but as a sort of lab where I can run my own experiments.
Expect to find out more about them over the next few weeks. But right now, I’m excited to announce that I’m developing a new e-book that’s all about tropical flavors!
I’m only bringing this up because while making the recipes, I asked myself a question: How many changes do I have to make to a recipe to extend its shelf life?
It turns out that you don’t have to drastically change your ingredients or use disproportionate amounts of different sugars to do it.
Let’s use my mango ganache recipe as a simple example.
Original Mango Ganache Recipe Ingredients:
-
Cream 35% Fat (Scale 85 grams) | 35 g | 16%
-
Cardamom Pods | 2.5 units | 1%
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PONTHIER Mango Purée | 25 g | 12%
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CHEF RUBBER Sorbitol | 17 g | 8%
-
Glucose Syrup | 22 g | 10%
-
Butter 82% Fat | 15 g | 7%
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SOSA Yogurt Powder | 2 g | 1%
-
Citric Acid | 1 g | 0.5%
-
SOSA Mango Extract | 7 drops | 0%
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CACAO BARRY Zéphyr 34% White Couverture | 95 g | 44%
-
Total Weight | 215 g | 100%
Long Shelf-life Ganache Recipe Ingredients:
-
Cream 35% Fat (Scale 40 grams) | 28 g | 14%
-
Cardamom Pods | 3 units | 0%
-
PONTHIER Mango Purée | 20 g | 10%
-
CHEF RUBBER Sorbitol | 16 g | 8%
-
Glucose Syrup | 20 g | 10%
-
Butter 82% Fat | 16 g | 8%
-
SOSA Yogurt Powder | 2 g | 1%
-
Citric Acid | 2.2 g | 1%
-
SOSA Mango Extract | 3 drops | 0%
-
CACAO BARRY Zéphyr 34% White Couverture | 90 g | 46%
-
Total Weight | 194 g | | 100%
Two very different shelf lives
As you can see, they both call for the same ten ingredients.
There’s no added glycerol, no swapping the purée for cream, and yet, the first recipe has only 20 days of shelf life.
Wanna guess the shelf life of the second one? 50 days!
So what changes did I make to extend the shelf life of my ganache?
1. I slightly reduced the water-based ingredients (the mango purée and the cream).
2. I increased the chocolate percentage.
3. I added more citric acid to reduce the sweetness of the extra chocolate.
These very simple modifications extended the shelf life of my filling by one month and left me with a ganache that had the same smooth texture I was looking for.
A key principle of ganache formulation
The experiment shows that formulation is not always about turning a recipe on its head, but simply understanding which ingredients we need less of to let sugars do their work (i.e., bind free water more effectively, which sorbitol is amazing at).
Wanna learn more about ganache formulation? Check out the recording of my last formulation class with Chef Ramon Morató.
I hope you find this recipe comparison useful!
With love,
-Melissa