Dessert Articles & Tips |Cadbury Desserts Corner

Almond Praline Chocolate Ganache Make It Smooth and Shiny

Written by bhavana verma | October 13, 2025

A nutty ganache can make any dessert stand out from the rest. It is flavorful, sweet, creamy, and nutty, which can pair well with almost any dessert. From cakes to pastries, muffins, and truffles, a nutty ganache can instantly improve the recipe and take it to a whole new level. When combined with chocolate, nuts taste insanely delightful. The dark and deep flavor of chocolate matches with the nutty essence, creating a balanced flavor.

While you can make ganache with almost any type of nuts, the ones that especially pairs well with chocolate are almonds, hazelnuts, and pecans. The combination of almonds, hazelnuts, and pecans is called praline. Praline can be made with almonds and hazelnuts, too, when you want to skip out pecans, and when you don’t have hazelnuts, it is also good to use almonds on their own. Almonds become the perfect pair for chocolate and bring out the best of nutty and deep flavors in one dessert. It is even better when you use this pair in making a delightful ganache for your desserts.

This recipe will tell you how you can make a perfectly smooth and shiny ganache with almond praline and chocolate. You can easily make almond praline at home by roasting almonds until they are fragrant, then coating them with caramel. After coating, spread the almonds out on a parchment lined sheet and let them harden. After they get hardened in the air, crush them into shards or powder and use them for desserts as you like. With this recipe, you can use almond praline in chocolate ganache to make a smooth and shiny frosting for any dessert.

Easy Recipe For Chocolate Ganache With Almond Praline Crunch

Ingredients

200 g dark or semi-sweet chocolate

100 ml heavy cream (full-fat, 35% preferred)

50 g almond praline (crushed or powdered)

20 g room temperature butter (unsalted)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Step 1: Heat the Cream

Pour the cream out in a saucepan and warm it up on low heat until it is just about to boil. When you overheat the cream, it becomes harder to handle and the heat can make the chocolate seize. Therefore, you just need to heat it up enough to melt the chocolate.

Step 2: Add to Chocolate

Chop the chocolate into fine pieces and put it in a heat-safe bowl. Pour the hot cream into the chopped chocolate. Let the heat melt the chocolate slowly. First, let the chocolate sit in the hot cream so its heat would naturally melt the chocolate, then stir it slightly to melt the remaining lumps. You can add some butter to make it look glossy. It usually takes 2 minutes to melt the chocolate entirely.

Step 3: Blend in Praline

Once the chocolate is melted, stir in the almond praline mixture. Almond praline should be finely crushed to make a smooth ganache. If you want a coarse texture of ganache to get little crunchy bites, you can keep the texture of the almond praline coarse. Do it the way you like.

Step 4: Finish for Shine

Now add butter and mix everything well until it gets emulsified and glossy. To make the ganache extra smooth, you can use an immersion blender. This blender works differently from other blenders as you have to immerse it completely to blend the mixture. This leaves no coarse lumps behind. Keep the blender submerged to avoid the formation of air bubbles.

Step 5: Serve or Use

Serve this ganache with crackers and biscuits, and use it in other desserts like cupcakes and pastries for decoration and frosting. It is so smooth and glossy, it will make you go nuts!

Pro Tips for a Smooth & Shiny Ganache

Chop the chocolate finely to ensure quick and lump-free melting. When you chop it into big chunks, it won’t melt well, and some lumps will remain hard while the rest of the chocolate will start to burn.

Maintain the correct cream temperature to melt the chocolate evenly. If it is too hot, it can burn chocolate, and if it is too cold, it won’t melt the chocolate properly.

Don’t whisk too hard. Stir the ganache ingredients gently to avoid incorporating air. When air gets introduced in the mixture, it causes the ganache to look dull and frothy instead of smooth and glossy.

Add butter or glucose syrup to bring a little fat into the ganache. A little fat or corn syrup brings stability and shine, which keeps the ganache from becoming flat and melty.

There are different ways to use this ganache. If you want to use it as a glaze for cakes, pastries, and cupcakes, you can use it immediately while it is freshly made and warm. If you want to use it for fillings, let it cool slightly so you can pipe it.