Dessert is evolving from the traditional to the unexpected: Now it’s often a good way to get your vegetables.

Today’s pastry chefs are going beyond carrot cake, zucchini bread, and sweet potato pie when it comes to making desserts with vegetables.

Corn, tomatoes, cucumber, squash, eggplant, celery, beets, carrots, and mushrooms are all showing up in desserts such as tomato sorbet, corn crème brulée, and chocolate-beet baked goods. Some vegetables cook in similar ways to fruits. For example, eggplant can be a substitute in many recipes for apple or pear.

Chef Michael Laiskonis says, "Incorporating vegetables in dessert recipes is more about creating a flavorful dish and realizing that vegetables have various functionalities rather than using a particular one for ‘shock value’ alone."

Vegetables can also be substitutes for high fat ingredients; the creamy texture and fat content of avocados make them a great substitute for fat in ice creams, gelato, and mousse. In addition, vegetables can be a colorful natural alternative to artificial colorings due to their pigments.

YUMMY! We have lots of great (non-food) treats for our subscribers. Subscribers have a coupon that gets you a beautiful, hardcover copy of Whitley’s wonderful novel Hybrids for only $5. PLUS you get to listen to incredible interviews with contactees, such as Susan and Christina, both of whom learned all about UFOs from local Indian tribes. Not a subscriber? New subscribers who subscribe for one year will get a FREE unknowncountry.com tote bag, and if you subscribe for two years, you’ll get a FREE 2013 Crop Circle calendar! And just in time for the holiday season (when we all overeat), now EVERYONE can get the download of Anne Strieber’s famous diet book for $2 off (it now costs less than $3).

Image Credits:
News Source:
Dreamland Video podcast
To watch the FREE video version on YouTube, click here.

Subscribers, to watch the subscriber version of the video, first log in then click on Dreamland Subscriber-Only Video Podcast link.