I’m sharing how to make simple & delicious chocolate mirror glaze step-by-step with essential tips to make it successful at home!
🤎 I love this chocolate mirror glaze because it's:
- So easy to make! - 5 ingredients with five steps!
- Very smooth and shiny - The cake looks so elegant with this glossy glaze!
- Not too sensitive to minor mistakes or temperature gaps like some glaze.
- Simple yet tastes fantastic! - I use this mirror glaze for any chocolate cake.
In this post, you'll learn essential baking tips such as:
- What type of gelatin should we use?
- How to avoid mirror glaze from getting lumpy
- The temperature to pour it onto a cake
- how to store and reuse it
Jump to:
📌 What's In Chocolate Mirror Glaze?
- Gelatin
- I used gelatin sheets (bloom 230) this time. You can also use gelatin powder. Follow the package instruction to see if you need to mix it with cold water beforehand.
- Water
- Heavy cream
- Use regular heavy cream that is not low-fat.
- Granulated sugar
- Sugar helps to make the shiny, softer texture while it also works as a preservative.
- Cocoa powder
- Use any of your favorite cocoa powders.
- The glaze gets darker with lighter cocoa powder. Often, high-quality cocoa powder is darker.
- Use any of your favorite cocoa powders.
📌 How To Make Chocolate Mirror Glaze
5 Steps To Make Chocolate Mirror Glaze
- Soak gelatin sheets in cold ice water for 5 - 10 minutes to hydrate them completely.
- If you are using gelatin powder instead, let it hydrate in cold water as directed in the package. (Often, it requires you to mix with 4-5 times more cold water and wait for about 10 minutes.)
- Pour water into a pot. Mix cocoa powder and granulated sugar well with a whisk and add them to a pot. Mix well until the liquids look very smooth.
- Heat 2 at medium heat while mixing constantly with a spatula until it starts boiling.
- Add heavy cream and continue boiling until the liquids start boiling again.
- Strain it and add the hydrated gelatin. Mix well.
Tips With Images
Now, let me share detailed tips on each step that are crucial for making chocolate mirror glaze successful.
Step 1: Soak the gelatin sheet in ice water for 5-10 minutes to let them hydrate completely.
👩🏻🍳 Use very cold water, ice water ideally. Make sure that all the sheets touch the cold water. The tips also apply the same when you are using gelatin powder.
Step 2: Pour water into a pot. Mix cocoa powder and granulated sugar well with a whisk and add them to a pot. Mix well until the liquids look very smooth.
💡 Mixing cocoa powder and sugar eliminates a lot of chunks of cocoa powder beforehand.
💬 Switch to a spatula once they are smooth. It's going to be easier to clean the bottom and sides than using a whisk.
Step 3: Heat 2 at medium heat while mixing constantly with a spatula until it starts boiling.
💬 Some of the ingredients, such as heavy cream and cocoa powder, easily get burned. Constantly mix evenly, scraping off the bottom and the sides.
Stop when it is boiling very hard.
Step 4: Add heavy cream and continue boiling until the liquids start boiling again.
Add all the heavy cream at once.
Immediately remove it from the heat once it starts boiling hard again.
Step 5: Strain it and add the hydrated gelatin. Mix well.
💬 The glaze still contains tiny chunks of cocoa powder at this point. By straining it with a fine sieve, you can ensure that it is very smooth!
💬 Before you add gelatin sheets, squeeze out excess water by hand or use a sieve to do the same!
check if the gelatin is completely melted.
📌 Tips to glaze cakes with chocolate mirror glaze
When the mirror glaze is just made, it is too hot to pour onto cakes. Set it aside and let it cool more, checking the temperature sometimes.
👩🏻🍳 Do not mix it too fast so that it does not contain a lot of air bubbles. They do not look appealing on cakes! 💦
💡 I recommend pouring it on a frozen cake because it's much easier to spread beautifully. Cool it down to 104 F | 40 C to pour on a frozen cake. It is slightly warm or doesn't feel anything when you touch it, depending on how cold your finger is. (You might need to adjust the temperature depending on how cold the freezer is, the temperature of the room, etc.)
4 steps to pour mirror glaze on cakes
- Set up a cooling rack on a tray with plastic wrap. Prepare your cakes in the freezer so that you can take them out right away.
- Once the mirror glaze reaches the temperature, take out the cakes immediately and pour a generous amount all over on top. Do not pour it little by little since the glaze can start getting hardened before you finish.
- Immediately swish the top with a spatula to drop excess mirror glaze. This creates a thin layer of mirror glaze, making the cake taste more delicate and delicious!
- Clean off the excess mirror glaze on the bottom edge with a spatula and transfer them to cake boards or plates.
Serve it right away or store it in the fridge.
📌 How To Store Chocolate Mirror Glaze
Pour it into an air-tight container.
Store it in the fridge for up to a week or a few months in the freezer.
Warm it up again in the microwave or water bath before use.
- Stop the microwave every 15 - 30 seconds and mix to heat it evenly.
- If the container is not heat-resistant, move it to a heat-resistant container before doing so.
Leftover mirror glaze
You can reuse the mirror glaze if it's still clean and there are no mousse or sponges mixed in it.
Wrap it up like in the image below and squeeze it out in a container.
📌 Uses For Chocolate Mirror Glaze
Enjoy the delicious mirror glaze in many ways, such as:
- Small to large cakes
- Mousse cakes, buttercream cakes, ganache cakes, etc. Let them turn into elegant chocolate cakes!
- Plated desserts
- Glaze your custom dessert with this shiny glaze or brush/drizzle on plates as decorations!
- Choux pastry
- Use it as a glaze for cream puffs, eclairs, etc.
- Dripping cakes
- It creates beautiful drips! And it's a little bit more tolerant of minor mistakes than melted chocolate or ganache.
📌 Frequently Asked Questions
Use any cocoa powder you like! Better-quality cocoa powders are often darker and create slightly darker mirror glaze.
"Bloom" is a strength of gelatin. When the bloom is higher, your moose gets firmer. And when the bloom is lower, your mousse gets softer. And the bloom ranges from 50 to 300 or 350 usually. Today, I used this gelatin sheets with 230 bloom.
So, that means the texture is going to be softer when you use gelatin with a much lower bloom, even if you use the same amount as the recipe. A lot of us don't even get notified about this, but it is a very important tip to keep in mind when you use gelatin.
Check the gelatin you have and compare it with the bloom I used today (230) and see if it's about the same or if it's overly different.
Unfortunately, some of the packages do not even show the bloom. If you are not sure of how much you should adjust, I would advise making it one time and deciding if you should reduce or add more gelatin next time.
Yes! Follow the instruction in the package to see if you need to mix it with cold water beforehand. As I mentioned in the section above, the firmness of the mirror glaze changes slightly depending on "the bloom" in gelatin (It refers to the strength of gelatin. I used bloom 230 gelatin sheets this time). I recommend using the same amount as the recipe first, seeing if you like the firmness, and adjusting it next time if you like.
📌 VIDEO: Chocolate Mirror Glaze
To learn how to make chocolate mirror glaze visually and have a deeper understanding of all, watch this video.
Don't forget to subscribe if you liked it 😉
🌼🌼 The End 🌼🌼
💬 If you loved this recipe, please share your feedback on this post! I always love to hear how you enjoyed it at home with your friends and family.
📌 Printable Recipe
Simple Chocolate Mirror Glaze
Equipment
- Pot
- Spatula
- Whisk
- Bowl
- Seive
Ingredients
- 0.67 oz Gelatin
- 7 oz Water
- 10.6 oz Granulated sugar
- 4.6 oz Cocoa powder
- 7 oz Heavy cream
Instructions
- Soak gelatin sheets in cold ice water for 5 - 10 minutes to hydrate them completely.If you are using gelatin powder instead, let it hydrate in cold water as directed in the package. (Oftentimes, it requires you to mix with 4-5 times more cold water and wait for about 10 minutes.)0.67 oz Gelatin
- Pour water into a pot. Mix cocoa powder and granulated sugar well with a whisk and add them to a pot. Mix really well until the liquids look very smooth.7 oz Water, 10.6 oz Granulated sugar, 4.6 oz Cocoa powder
- Heat 2 at medium heat while mixing constantly with a spatula until it starts boiling.
- Add heavy cream and continue boiling until the liquids start boiling again.7 oz Heavy cream
- Strain it and add the hydrated gelatin. Mix well.
Video
Notes
How to store it:
Pour it into an air-tight container. Store it in the fridge for up to a week or a few months in the freezer.How to glaze cakes with it:
Cool it down to 104 F | 40 C to pour on a frozen cake. It is slightly warm or doesn't feel anything when you touch it depending on how cold your finger is. You might need to adjust the temperature depending on how cold the freezer is, the temperature of the room, etc.-
- Set up a cooling rack on a tray with plastic wrap. Prepare your cakes in the freezer so that you can take them out right away.
-
- Once it reaches the temperature, take out the cakes immediately and pour a generous amount all over on top. Do not pour it little by little since the glaze can start getting hardened before you finish.
-
- Immediately swish the top with a spatula to drop excess mirror glaze. This creates a thin layer of mirror glaze which makes the cake taste more delicate and delicious.
-
- Clean off the excess mirror glaze on the bottom edge with a spatula and transfer them to cake boards or plates.
Nutrition
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