The best easy lemon white chocolate ganache without cream. Instead, the cream is replaced by fridge staples - milk and butter - for a zesty lemon ganache frosting.
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✏️ Why you'll love this recipe
This easy lemon ganache recipe has a slightly more thick and curd-like consistency than a regular white chocolate ganache. It's also still super creamy with no cream.
This 4-ingredient lemon white chocolate ganache without heavy cream is perfect for icing cakes and cupcakes or filling your chocolates and macarons. You can also use it as a lemon white chocolate drip without cream.
It's one of my favourite white chocolate lemon frosting ideas, and it's great using cupboard staples and fresh lemons.
🥘 Ingredients
This lemon white chocolate ganache no cream recipe calls for the following ingredients:
- Butter: use unsalted butter to control the salt content and real butter not baking spread.
- Milk: semi-skimmed or full-fat milk works best.
- White chocolate: use cooking chocolate or melting wafers for ease of melting.
- Lemon zest and juice: use fresh lemons for a full zesty flavour.
See the recipe card for quantities.
Top tip: For accuracy, it’s best to weigh your ingredients rather than using cups.
♻️ Substitutions / Variations
You can swap the butter and milk for cream for a more traditional white chocolate lemon ganache. Use 180ml (1 ¼ cup) heavy cream.
For more lemon flavour, stir in a few teaspoons of lemon curd to your curd before it sets. Make sure it's room temperature or warm it in the microwave briefly first.
I love my lemon ganache to have quite the zesty kick, so I put 2 lemons of zest and juice into the mix. If you prefer a more subtle flavour, then try adding 1½ lemons' zest and juice instead.
Instead of lemon, you can swap this for another citrus fruit, such as lime. For this, I would use 3 limes instead of the 2 lemons.
📖 Method
- Heat the butter and milk together until almost boiling, either in a microwave (30 secs at a time) or in a pan over the stove on medium heat.
- Break the white chocolate up into small pieces in a heatproof bowl and pour the hot butter and milk mix over the white chocolate. Cover and leave for 3-4mins.
- Stir the mix until smooth, with all of the white chocolate melted. If the white chocolate hasn’t fully melted (i.e. you can see small chocolate lumps) you can put this back into the microwave / over the heat for a bit longer until smooth.
- Add in the lemon zest and juice, stirring until evenly mixed throughout. It will look thin and runny per the below 'Before' image.
- Let the mix cool until set for at least an hour in the fridge until it has a peanut butter consistency ('After' image below), then use as desired.
💭 Top tips
- For the best lemon ganache, use white chocolate from the baking aisle for ease of melting. Make sure to break your white chocolate into small, even pieces if you don’t use melting white chocolate chips.
- Heat the milk and butter mix slowly and stop before boiling so it doesn't burn the chocolate, giving you a smooth white chocolate lemon ganache.
- Any
- For whipped lemon ganache frosting as a fluffy icing for cakes and cupcakes, beat your set ganache with an electric mixer (hand mixer or stand mixer) for several minutes until pale and fluffy.
- Heat your no-cream white chocolate lemon ganache in the microwave for 30secs for a deliciously warm lemon white chocolate glaze sauce to drizzle over your treats.
❔ Recipe FAQs
Your lemon ganache should last for up to 4 days stored in an airtight container in the fridge. Allow the ganache to come up to room temperature before use if using it for frosting, filling, spreading, etc.
Yes! You can freeze your lemon ganache in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Defrost, re-beat if needed and enjoy!
If your lemon ganache is too thick to pipe or spread, you can thin it by stirring in warmed milk 1 tablespoon at a time until it’s the right consistency for use.
If your lemon ganache is too thin once fully cooled, then melt the ganache in 20 second bursts in the microwave. In a separate bowl, melt an extra 50g / ⅓ cup of white chocolate and beat this into your melted ganache until smooth. Allow it to cool and set again before use.
Yes, you can make white chocolate lemon ganache without heavy cream by swapping the cream for butter and milk.
🧁 Other goodies
Looking for some more easy frosting ideas?
If you love a zesty frosting, give this lemon buttercream or easy orange buttercream a try. Or for the ganache lovers, try this Bailey's Irish cream ganache recipe.
For more tasty frosting ideas, check out this collection of the best frosting and fillings recipes.
If you’re a fan of lemon desserts, you might also like these easy citrusy recipes:
- Best lemon white chocolate cake - uses this no-cream lemon white chocolate ganache icing recipe!
- Lemon pound cake with lemon icing glaze
- Fluffy lemon orange cupcakes
- Best ever lemon curd - a simple yet classic homemade curd, perfect for a cake filling
- Lemon curd cake with lemon buttercream
- Buttery lemon almond shortbread cookies
Looking forward to some new recipes? Check out my Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest pages for a few sneak peeks and some sweet inspiration!
Or if you’d like to hear about our latest recipes, why not subscribe to our newsletter?
📖 Recipe
No-Cream Lemon White Chocolate Ganache
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Ingredients
- 125 g (½ cups) butter unsalted
- 180 ml (¾ cups) milk whole or semi-skimmed
- 500 g (3¾ cups) white chocolate
- 2 lemons' zest and juice roughly 8tbsp juice and 2tbsp zest
Instructions
- Heat the butter and milk together until almost boiling, either in a microwave (30 secs at a time) or in a pan over the stove on a medium heat.
- Break the chocolate up into small pieces in a heatproof bowl and pour the hot butter and milk mix over the chocolate. Cover and leave for 3-4mins.
- Stir the mix until smooth, with all of the chocolate melted. If the chocolate hasn’t fully melted (i.e. you can see small chocolate lumps) you can put this back into the microwave / over the heat for a bit longer until smooth.
- Add in the lemon zest and juice, stirring until evenly mixed throughout.
- Let the mix cool until set for at least an hour in the fridge, then use as desired.
Notes
- Use good quality baking white chocolate from the cooking aisle for ease of melting.
- Heat your milk-butter mix slowly, microwaving in 20sec bursts, and stop before boiling to prevent it from burning your chocolate.
- You can whip your set lemon ganache for a soft and light frosting. Beat it with an electric mixer for several minutes until pale and fluffy.
- For warm lemon white chocolate sauce, heat your ganache in the microwave for 30secs and drizzle over your treats.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is an estimate based on an online nutritional calculator, actual values may vary.
Lynn says
Not all lemons are the same size. It would be helpful if you could give the exact measurements instead of zest and juice from two lemons.
Kachina says
Hi Lynn,
You're absolutely right, not all lemons are the same size and this can affect the outcome. For an easier recipe I've generalised, but 2 lemons' zest and juice equals roughly 2 tbsp zest and 8 tbsp juice.
Happy baking!
Lona says
Also could you use heavy cream instead of the milk?
Lona says
Would this be a good ganache to use as a filling in between cakes?
Tt says
Is it possible to make this dairy-free? Substitute the dairy milk for non-dairy milk?
Sweet Mouth Joy says
Hiya, to make this dairy-free you would need to substitute the milk, butter and white chocolate for dairy-free / vegan alternatives. I haven't yet tried this, so can't say for sure if it will work. If you give it a go, I'd love to know how it went! Will add this to my list to experiment with.
Mark says
Can I dip my cupcakes into this ganache and get them to set up like traditional ganache?
Sweet Mouth Joy says
Hi Mark, this ganache tends to be a bit softer than traditional ganache, but should still be great for frosting your cupcakes. Happy baking!
Nic says
Hi can I use this ganache to pipe cupcake with ? Tia
Sweet Mouth Joy says
Hiya, yes this ganache is great piped onto cupcakes. It can be quite soft depending on the temperature but it's lovely. Happy baking!
Trish says
Hi, I just wondered if this sets like a regular ganache? I need to make lines (like pages of a book) on a birthday cake and no one at the party likes fondant!
Sweet Mouth Joy says
Hi Trish, this ganache tends to set quite soft compared to a regular ganache so may not be able to hold lines for book pages.
Rachel says
I can’t wait to try this.
Emily says
This sounds amazing! Look forward to trying your recipes!
Sweet Mouth Joy says
Thanks Emily! Happy baking!
Amy says
Hi! I'm looking to fill macarons, and this sounds delicious but the recipe makes way too much. The last ganache I made for macarons used 120 g of chocolate and 90g of fruit puree and I still had some left over. So, if I reduce the recipe so 120g is the amount of chocolate, and I combine with reduced amounts of the milk (43ml) and butter (30g), can I add lemon juice and zest to taste "safely" b/c the chocolate is already stablized with the dairy, or will it still sieze/curdle? Hope this is clear... I'm in the U.S. and I do weigh my ingredients in grams, but I'm not so confident with the math when it comes to reducing a recipe. Thanks in advance!
Sweet Mouth Joy says
Hi Amy! This ganache would be great in macarons. Your reduced measurements are correct so you should be able to follow the same steps and get a lovely ganache. I'd use only 1/2 a lemons' zest and juice for this amount of ganache. With smaller amounts, it's easier for things to go wrong (chocolate is fussy!), so I'd recommend heating the milk and butter in shorter bursts if microwaving so you don't overheat before adding the chocolate. Let me know how it turns out, happy baking!