Maturing Ganache

Many confectioners let ganache mixtures stand at a cool room temperature overnight before working with them. This gradual cooling allows the cocoa butter to crystallize so that when the ganache is shaped or eaten, it softens and melts more slowly. Ganache refrigerated immediately after making hardens without forming many crystals, and becomes soft and greasy when it warms.

Thanks to the initial scalding of the cream and the chocolate’s sugar content, moisture-absorbing cocoa particles, and abundant microbe-unfriendly phenolic compounds, ganache has a surprisingly long shelf life of a week or more at room temperature.