Brown Butter Milk Chocolate Ganache
Brown Butter Milk Chocolate Ganache
This brown butter milk chocolate ganache recipe is a great alternative to traditional chocolate ganache. The addition of brown butter gives it a lovely nutty flavour, and the flakey sea salt gives a great contrast to the sweet chocolate – it literally melts in the mouth!
It’s perfect for piping on top of brownies or chocolate cakes, and it makes a great filling for macarons (or wedged between chocolate chip cookies!).
Making chocolate ganache is so simple, and once you’ve mastered it you’ll want to use it in all your desserts! One tip when it comes to your chocolate ganache ingredients is to always use good quality chocolate, I make sure I do this in whatever I’m baking and it makes such a difference to overall result.
I really hope you enjoy my recipe for milk chocolate ganache! If you’re looking for other ganache flavours check out my Whipped Ganache 101 video and recipes.
Ingredients
Method
Into a small saucepan, add the unsalted butter. Cook it over a medium low heat, stirring occasionally until it reaches a deep golden brown colour and smells nutty. It should take around 4-5 minutes.
Pour this into a small bowl and allow it to set to room temperature so that it is the consistency of soft butter. This can take quite a while if you leave it at room temperature, but you can speed this up by placing it in the fridge and stirring it every few minutes until it thickens. If it sets slightly firmer than soft butter that's fine.
Scoop the soft brown butter into a separate dish and weigh 65g of it.
Into a tall jug, add the chopped chocolate and set it to one side.
Into a small saucepan over medium heat, add the cream and glucose (or honey if using) and stir it gently until it is steaming, and the glucose/honey has dissolved.
Once hot, pour this immediately over the chocolate and let it sit for 2 minutes.
Blend until smooth, then add in the weighed brown butter and blend again.
Pour it into a bowl and then stir through the sea salt flakes (not fine table salt). Cover the surface directly with cling film. Chill in the fridge for 3 hours.
Once chilled, use a hand whisk to whisk it to a medium peak. It will whip up quite quickly, so be very careful not to over whip it. Use it immediately.
Can this fantastic ganache be used to fill and decorate a cake? You do mention that it has to be used immediately.
Hey! No I wouldn’t use it for this purpose as it would be too heavy on the palette. I’d use it to fill small things like macarons, or to pipe on top of brownies.
Hi, do you think this ganache can work as a bonbon filling or is it too thick for that? In case it’s too thick – would it be also good without whipping? I’m thinking of skipping the whipping step, and fill in the ganache to the bonbon shells when they just chilled to room temperature, and let it firm completely like that.
I think it might be too thick for a bon bon filling. Could be worth trying? I’m not a huge expert on bon bons I’m afraid!
Hey,Matt. You’ve mentioned several times that you’d use this ganache to fill macarons or top brownies,so I’m planning to use it for a macaron with a brownie center! But these quantities make a lot of ganache so I’m planning on using only half or even less of it. Does that mean that if I divide the ingredients by 2 I should also devide the 65 grams of brown butter that have to go in the ganache? So I guess that means 32 grams than… Thank you!
I would say it won’t make very much, maybe only enough to fill 8/10 macarons! But yes you can half it no problem!!
For reference – I just made this recipe, and it filled more than 40 macarons! + a little extra went in my coffee 🙂
However, I prefer a very small amount of filling, just piped enough for it to squeeze out to the sides with ~0.5cm thickness
Lovely Sara!! thanks for the feedback!
Hey Matt…
That’s a wonderful recipe. Would love to try my hands on. The heavy cream we get here, is already sweetened. How to adjust the sweetness here. Can you please guide me..? Thanks in advance.
Hey! I’m unsure as haven’t tested this with any sweetened creams. What country are you in? I’ll see if I can find an alternative!
Is it wrong just to eat this on its own? It’s soon good
Absolutely not!
Do we have to use only hand whisk to whip or can we electric whisk to whip the cream
Hey! I’d recommend using a hand whisk as it will whip up very quickly, so you don’t want to risk over-whipping it with an electric whisk.
can i use a regular blender if i don’t have access to a stick/wand blender?
Yes this should be fine!
We stumbled over here coming from a different web address and thought I might as well check things out.
I like what I see so i am just following you. Look forward to looking into your web page again.
Thank you!
Could I use a darker chocolate or would the fat ratio compromise the texture?
Hey! I’ve not tested this with dark chocolate but it’ll most likely end up too thick using this. You’d need to test it by increasing the amount of cream. I’d start by adding 100g if using dark chocolate. Hope this helps!
Can i used salted butter and omit the salt ? Thanks
Hey! The flakey salt is important because it doesn’t quite dissolve, so it really adds to the flavour of the ganache. If you don’t have sea salt flakes but just have table salt, I’d use this instead of salted butter (although it still won’t have the same result as flakes!).
Thank you Matt it’s delicious and as you said I will use it on my brownie
Enjoy!
Can this be used to ice cakes instead of typical ganache ?
Hey! No the ganache would be too fragile to decorate a cake with. The agitation from scraping it would likely cause it to split. I’d use it to fill macarons or pipe on top of brownies!
How do you feel about filling donuts with this?
Personally it would be too heavy for me!
Definitely going to try it, thank you
Enjoy!
Thank you for the einem recipe. Is it possible to make the ganache the day before and just whisk it directly before use? And if so, should I store it in the fridge or leave it cool at room temperature?
Thank you and greetings from Germany!
Meggi
Hey! This should be fine although i’ve not tried it – I’d store it in the fridge 🙂
If I wanted to use this for a plated dessert, can I just pipe it in my cake and freeze and then just thaw for service?
I haven’t tested that but should be fine
This ganache is so good! I just made it & used a macaron filling. Delicious! Can I freeze the leftover or will it seperate/deflate upon thawing? Thank you!
So glad!! Unfortunately it won’t freeze so well as it is cream based