We were with friends in a Thai restaurant and sharing summer rolls with peanut sauce.
One bite into the sauce and my immediate thought was: "this would be amazing! on a chocolate cake. Or spread inside chocolate cookies. Or in a pie!" My mind couldn't make up its mind.
Sadly, the restaurant refused to share their recipe. I'm hoping it came out of a 55-gallon drum and has so many preservatives that I'll never replicate it. But...in the off-chance that it was from a "real" recipe...
...I've been testing peanut sauce, but not making much headway. The restaurant version was creamy and darkish and zippy and had "something" else that complimented, but slightly muted the peanutness.
And drat, I can't figure it out.
Anyway. The Birthday Cake at The Harrison is a multi-layer chocolate cake that the chef moistens cut layers with Coke. Then she spreads raspberry jam with Chambord on top of that. Then she spreads whipped ganache in between the main layers and finishes off with chocolate icing. (see link for photo)
I wanted to try something similar, but had already done raspberry/Chambord filling. So I decided to try "Thai coconut milk peanut sauce" as my filling since I knew I would be icing it with a tofu chocolate icing thinned with coconut milk.
Wiz together a few tablespoons of:
Peanut butter
Thin with unsweetened coconut milk
Sweeten with a blob of hoison sauce
Spice with cayenne pepper.
It was...surprisingly nice with a residual burn at the back of the throat. Still not the restaurant version, but definitely passable.
I was icing the 6" stacked cake as it rested on top of my flipped-over KA metal bowl, just for some height. I got so into spinning and perfecting the icing surface that...(you know where this is going, don't you?? Don't tell me you don't.)...the cake did a half-gainer and flipped then splatted on its perfectly-iced top.
Ergo, no photos.
But still tasty.
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=the+harrison+birthday+cake&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1374&bih=723&tbm=isch&tbnid=T5R6QvdcqBRrnM:&imgrefurl=http://blog.cookingchanneltv.com/2011/05/15/sneak-peek-unique-sweets/&docid=Ycm0fTpKcOqeFM&imgurl=http://blog.sndimg.com/co
One bite into the sauce and my immediate thought was: "this would be amazing! on a chocolate cake. Or spread inside chocolate cookies. Or in a pie!" My mind couldn't make up its mind.
Sadly, the restaurant refused to share their recipe. I'm hoping it came out of a 55-gallon drum and has so many preservatives that I'll never replicate it. But...in the off-chance that it was from a "real" recipe...
...I've been testing peanut sauce, but not making much headway. The restaurant version was creamy and darkish and zippy and had "something" else that complimented, but slightly muted the peanutness.
And drat, I can't figure it out.
Anyway. The Birthday Cake at The Harrison is a multi-layer chocolate cake that the chef moistens cut layers with Coke. Then she spreads raspberry jam with Chambord on top of that. Then she spreads whipped ganache in between the main layers and finishes off with chocolate icing. (see link for photo)
I wanted to try something similar, but had already done raspberry/Chambord filling. So I decided to try "Thai coconut milk peanut sauce" as my filling since I knew I would be icing it with a tofu chocolate icing thinned with coconut milk.
Wiz together a few tablespoons of:
Peanut butter
Thin with unsweetened coconut milk
Sweeten with a blob of hoison sauce
Spice with cayenne pepper.
It was...surprisingly nice with a residual burn at the back of the throat. Still not the restaurant version, but definitely passable.
I was icing the 6" stacked cake as it rested on top of my flipped-over KA metal bowl, just for some height. I got so into spinning and perfecting the icing surface that...(you know where this is going, don't you?? Don't tell me you don't.)...the cake did a half-gainer and flipped then splatted on its perfectly-iced top.
Ergo, no photos.
But still tasty.
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=the+harrison+birthday+cake&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1374&bih=723&tbm=isch&tbnid=T5R6QvdcqBRrnM:&imgrefurl=http://blog.cookingchanneltv.com/2011/05/15/sneak-peek-unique-sweets/&docid=Ycm0fTpKcOqeFM&imgurl=http://blog.sndimg.com/co