Confession: I don’t always have heavy cream on hand. It’s not something I consistently need in my baking, so I really only need it when I’m making ganache. And let’s face it, it’s sometimes a pain in the a** to have to run to the grocery store to pick up ONE ingredient that you don’t have. Yes, I’ve tried freezing it in the past, but it hasn’t worked out well for me. So I thought, there has to be another way…. And there is!

EVeryone knows how to make ganache. Heat heavy cream and pour it over chocolate then stir. Simple. So why does this recipe need messing with? Because it does. And it can be made in another way with ingredients you ALWAYS have available.

Heavy cream provides two things for the ganache. First, it provides liquid to coat the chocolate so it can be heated and dissolved into. Second, it provides more fat, as the secret ingredient in most desserts is fat. So how do you replace these two components:

Milk and Butter.

Yep, these two things that are always available in your fridge are what make this recipe work. The milk provides the liquid. And when I say milk, I mean WHOLE milk, not low fat, not 2%, not skim. Will it work with almond or oat milk? I don’t know I haven’t personally tried it yet. But it does with whole milk. Then butter. I prefer unsalted butter but I have tried it with salted and it worked perfectly fine with that as well.

This is brilliant. I’m not entirely sure if there are health benefits to changing the recipe, like less calories or slightly less fat, but if you have ever read the side of a heavy cream bottle, I’m sure there are less calories.

What’s great about this recipe is its very versatile. You can use it to make chocolate drips on instagram worthy cakes, whip up frosting to top cupcakes or fill macarons and even freeze it to ball truffles. All the things you can do with traditional ganache. (Although I like the regular truffles better than this, but they are still doable.)

You can easily double or triple this recipe as needed, just make sure your measurements are correct. And if you need better instruction, head to my you YouTube channel The Princess Baker for a video tutorial.

RECIPE INGREDIENTS:
4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
1/8c whole milk
3 tablespoons butter

RECIPE DIRECTIONS:
Add chocolate to bowl. Pour milk over chocolate. Add butter. Heat in double broiler until combined. Easy!