This simple recipe is for an easy lemon white chocolate ganache that doesn’t require cream. Instead, the cream is replaced by fridge staples - milk and butter. Combined with the lemon, these ingredients almost create a buttermilk in your mixture.
This lemon white chocolate ganache is perfect for your icing your cakes and cupcakes or filling your chocolates or macarons. All in all, it’s versatile and delicious!
This ganache has a slightly more curd-like consistency than a true ganache, and it's still super creamy and I think this pairs brilliantly with lemon - the numero uno of the curd world.
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✏️ Making a tasty and easy recipe
Cream isn’t something I usually stock in my fridge. So, if the mood strikes and I want to bake a cake (or I forgot it was someone’s birthday and needed to do some last-minute baking), then I wanted something quick and easy I could whip up.
Lemons, milk, butter and white chocolate are usually ingredients I have in my fridge and cupboard this so this works great as a last-minute cake frosting. It also works great all the time, because it really lets the zesty lemon flavour shine through.
🥘 Ingredients notes
Using good quality white chocolate for your ganache really improves the flavour. I’ve tried this before with cheap chocolate and you can definitely taste a difference! I like to use the fancy couverture white chocolate (this one by Callebaut), but any good quality white chocolate will work great.
Similarly, I recommend using real butter for this recipe rather than a baking blend of margarine or other spread.
When measuring your ingredients, I always recommend using weights rather than cups where possible for greater accuracy.
🔪 Equipment notes
I like to use digital scales for weighing my ingredients as it's easier and more accurate than other scales. I'm a fan of these KitchenAid or Salter ones!
🍱 Storage
Store your lemon white chocolate ganache in the fridge until ready to use.
When storing the ganache for later use, I usually leave it in the bowl I made it in, with cling film / plastic wrap over the top. Alternatively, you can transfer it to an airtight container to store in the fridge instead.
Your ganache should keep for up to 4 days in the fridge before use.
It's worth noting that the shelf life of what you put the ganache in will be limited by the ganache's freshness, so it's better to use the ganache as soon as possible.
💭 Top tips for success
- When you heat up the mix, it’s important to take it slow. Don’t be tempted to heat the mix for too long at once and cause it to boil, as you can end up burning the chocolate and won’t have a nice and smooth texture to your ganache.
- It’s likely that you’ll get a few lumps of unmelted white chocolate after you let the chocolate sit in the hot butter and milk mix for a few minutes. That’s ok, just keep beating the mix for a minute and if you still have lumps, then whack the mix into the microwave for another 10secs, or put back onto the double boiler for 30secs, and then remove from the heat and beat until it’s smooth. You can repeat this process a couple of times until you get a beautiful lump-free mix.
- When you first make your ganache, it will be quite thin as you can see in the image below. Don’t worry though, it will firm up as it sets. The time it takes to set can be quite a while, depending on whether you use the fridge or freezer, or what your room temperature is if you leave it on the side. It’s fastest to put this in the freezer for 30 mins then move this to the fridge for another 30mins.
Troubleshooting help:
If you’ve got any specific questions on making this no-cream lemon white chocolate ganache, please feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll try my best to help out!
Alternatively, you can get in touch via my Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest – I’d love to hear from you!
♻️ Alternatives and substitutions
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.
🧁 Other goodies
So, I definitely recommend that you whip up a batch of this easy no-cream lemon white chocolate ganache! But as an avid home baker, I’m sure you’re asking yourself “what next?”.
Well, if you’re craving lemony white chocolate goodness, but don’t know what to do with this tasty ganache, I’d recommend using it a gorgeous cake. Check out my recipe for a lemon white chocolate cake.
Well, if you’re a fan of deliciously tangy fruit flavours, check out my recipe for passionfruit curd or passionfruit Viennese biscuits.
Or if you really love lemony zesty goodness, then take a look at my recipe for classic lemon bars or lemon almond shortbread.
Looking forward to some new recipes? Check out my 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
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
- This recipe makes enough ganache to frost a 2-layer cake (8-inch sponges, icing between layers and covering the outside) or roughly 14 cupcakes.
- Store your ganache in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to 4 days.
Nutrition
* The nutrition information provided is an estimate based on an online nutritional calculator and actual values may vary.
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!
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.
I can’t wait to try this.
This sounds amazing! Look forward to trying your recipes!
Thanks Emily! Happy baking!
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!
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!