Sheet Pan

Alice's Chocolate Butter Glaze

by:
April  9, 2018
5
2 Ratings
Alice's Chocolate Butter Glaze
Photo by James Ransom
  • Makes Enough for an 8 or 9-inch cake or torte,.
Author Notes

This is one of my go-to recipes when I want chocolate glaze on a torte. Rather than chocolate and cream (ganache), this glaze is made with chocolate and butter, so the flavor is more intensely chocolaty than ganache. Use it for cakes and tortes meant to be stored and served at room temperature. Don't use chocolate chips. Even melted, baking morsels and chips are thick and sludgy rather than fluid and flowing.

The recipe includes instructions for crumb coating and glazing the cake with a marbled "Salvador Dalí" effect (pictured)—read about it here before starting.
—Alice Medrich

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • For the glaze
  • 6 ounces (170 Grams) any dark (semisweet or bittersweet) chocolate, chopped coarsely
  • 8 tablespoons (4 ounces/113 grams) unsalted butter, cut into several chunks
  • 1 tablespoon light corn syrup (or honey or golden syrup)
  • pinch salt (I use fine sea salt)
  • Chocolates for decorating
  • 2 ounces White chocolate (not chocolate chips), finely chopped
  • 2 ounces milk chocolate (not chocolate chips), finely chopped
  • 1 8 or 9 inch cake or torte, at room temperature
Directions
  1. To make the glaze, place chocolate, butter, and corn syrup in a stainless steel bowl set in a wide skillet of barely simmering water. Using a silicon spatula stir frequently and gently (to prevent air bubbles) until almost completely melted. Taste and add salt if you like. Remove the glaze from the water and set aside to finish melting, stirring once or twice until glaze is perfectly smooth. Cool glaze, without stirring, until nearly set and the consistency of easily spreadable frosting.
  2. Transfer about ¼ of the mixture to another bowl to use for crumb coating (and so that you don’t get crumbs into the remaining glaze). Center the cake on a cardboard cake circle (or pan bottom) the same size as the cake. "Crumb coat" the cake by spreading a thin layer of thickened glaze all over it—this is not meant to be pretty—just to smooth the surface of the cake and adhere loose crumbs. Set the cake aside on a sheet pan with cake rack near by.
  3. Put white and milk chocolates into separate (clean and dry) cups or ramekins. Bring the skillet of water back to a simmer and then turn the heat off and wait 1 minutes before setting the cups into the hot water. Stir the chocolates frequently until each is melted and fluid.
  4. Remove the cups from the water and turn the heat back on under the skillet. Set the bowl with the remaining glaze back into the water and reheat it gently, stirring, until it registers 90 degrees (perfect temperature for the best looking finish). If you overshoot the mark, set the glaze aside until it's at 90F.
  5. Before glazing the cake, be sure the white and milk chocolate are still warm and fluid, and the glaze is at 90F. Adjust the temperatures of these if necessary. Dry the bottoms of the cups and the bowl to avoid dripping water on the cake. Have two spoons ready for drizzling.
  6. To glaze the cake, pour all of the glaze on top of the cake but do not spread it. Immediately drizzle and drip white and milk chocolates generously over the glaze. Lift the cake, with both hand. Tilt and rotate the cake slowly so that the glaze flows over the sides all around the cake, letting excess land on the sheet pan. If you end up with a bare spot on the cake side, use a hand to scoop glaze from the sheet pan and gently ease it onto the bare spot—do all of this while the glaze and chocolate are all still warm and fluid. Set the cake on the rack and let it set at room temperature.
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  • Stephanie B.
    Stephanie B.
  • Karen Burns
    Karen Burns
  • Alice Medrich
    Alice Medrich
  • TM
    TM
Alice Medrich
My career was sparked by a single bite of a chocolate truffle, made by my Paris landlady in 1972. I returned home to open this country’s first chocolate bakery and dessert shop, Cocolat, and I am often “blamed” for introducing chocolate truffles to America. Today I am the James Beard Foundation and IACP award-winning author of ten cookbooks, teach a chocolate dessert class on Craftsy.com, and work with some of the world’s best chocolate companies. In 2018, I won the IACP Award for Best Food-Focused Column (this one!).

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9 Reviews

TM
TM April 10, 2021
I made the glaze for the second time to compliment my favorite chocolate cake (made from my Aunt Rosalind's recipe). The glazing turned out perfectly, pouring well. I used a blend of dark chocolates ranging from unsweetened to semi-sweet chocolate sourced from different locations (I needed to use up a bunch of dark chocolate I had stashed). I did a much better crumb coat this time before applying the glazing coat. The great thing about the glaze is that you can pour less on for a thinner coat or more on for a thicker coat. On the bottom layer I practiced doing a spider webs kind of design using white chocolate. I drizzled the white chocolate on with a small spoon in concentric circles then dragged the tip of a bamboo skewer through the white chocolate and glaze creating a pattern. It looked great! Then I decided to pour both milk and white chocolates atop the glaze of the top layer while spinning it on a lazy-susan as well tilting the cake from side to side. A few things I learned this time around: 1) don't spin the lazy- susan too fast or the chocolate will run down the sides and then spin off onto you, your counter and anything in close proximity. 2) Don't rush the pouring on of melted chocolate; a steady, less volumes pour worked better last time. 3) When adding in milk and white chocolate to get a marbalized or Jackson Pollock effect (hope I spelled his name correctly), less seems to be better. I rushed the pouring and added extra and it resulted in a hard chocolate toping that took over the flexibility of the glaze. Still tasted good and looked neat, but in terms of texture, I mucked it up. Still think this glaze recipe is a 5-star fabulous cake topper that balances out the sweetness of the cake. P.S. The background reading and video are very helpful to ways to create patterns with the glaze.
 
TM
TM October 5, 2020
As a first time experimenter with chocolate glazing, your recipe worked out wonderfully and it was not super sweet, nor did it become stiff. They texture and flavor were just right for me and did not add an unbearable sweetness. It complimented the dark chocolate cake that lied beneath it and the chocolate-hazelnut filling i spread between the cake layers. So while I still need practice to create a marbled affect, I am happy with the results. The process was fun and I learned along the way for the next time. Thank you!
 
TM
TM October 5, 2020
As a first time experimenter with chocolate glazing, your recipe worked out wonderfully and it was not super sweet, nor did it become stiff. They texture and flavor were just right for me and did not add an unbearable sweetness. It complimented the dark chocolate cake that lied beneath it and the chocolate-hazelnut filling i spread between the cake layers. So while I still need practice to create a marbled affect, I am happy with the results. The process was fun and I learned along the way for the next time. Thank you!
 
beejay45
beejay45 November 3, 2018
Is there a way to thin this? More butter? A little boiling water??? I love chocolate, but sweet stuff (like frostings and glazes) nauseates me. Yet, I don't want to not be able to do this. /;) As an example, when served a piece of cake, after one bite, I scrape off all the frosting, even between the layers, so I can eat the rest of my slice. Needless to say (but I will), I don't tend to eat cake "in public." So, could I thin this out so I could eat it, even in public?
 
Stephanie B.
Stephanie B. October 9, 2018
Made this for a co-worker's birthday cake - it was beautiful, fun to do, and everyone thought I painstakingly piped chocolate until I told them you just pour and tilt. I made Stella Park's Devil's Food cake in two layers and put strawberry cream in between to mellow out all the dark chocolate. Mine didn't turn out quite as streaky as pictured. I think that's because I didn't have to tilt the cake as much to get it covered - I was worried I wouldn't have enough chocolate for a filled two layer cake so I made 25% more glaze. More glaze = less tilting to cover. Turns out the original recipe would have been enough, but since it's a little ambiguous (8 or 9 in, no mention of layers) and it was for a special occasion I wanted to ensure full coverage. Another thing to keep in mind if you want your cake to look as perfectly straight as the one pictured is to bake in a wider pan than needed, and cut it to size with a ring. Or fill your pan more and trim off more cake. Even with trimming the tops, the sides of the cake were not perfectly straight. Since there's no frosting hide that kind of thing, it does show. That's neither here nor there regarding the glaze though.

Anyway, the glaze: super fun to make, solidifies into a great texture, tastes great, and is absolutely smooth and pretty shiny. Everyone was impressed, and I loved making this!
 
Karen B.
Karen B. June 21, 2018
looks amazing ~ it's on my "try this" list!
 
Christy J.
Christy J. May 22, 2018
Does this cool and solidify like a chocolate mirror glaze?
 
Ishtar
Ishtar April 20, 2018
Looks amazing!!! What cake recipe do you suggest using as a base?
 
Alice M.
Alice M. April 20, 2018
Whatever cake or torte that "needs" chocolate glaze! I've put it on all kinds of rich single layer chocolate or chocolate nut tortes, but why not an almond cake or yellow cake or devil's food cake!