Olive Oil Desserts

I like to explore unique dessert ingredients. I once made a carrot cake (my guy's most favorite dessert) while in Greece. The carrot cake is ubiquitous in the US and not unheard of in England, but when the Greeks found out this cake had been made with carrots, they developed sudden stomach aches. They were confounded, offended, and shocked that I would put this vegetable into a dessert.

It sounds funny, I suppose, if you've always eaten sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, and carrot cake, but these ingredients are exotic in some parts of the world. Never mind that the Greeks have 'spoon sweets' made of rose petals, tiny eggplants, and immature walnuts in the husk.

What I'm saying is that a dessert ingredient is only exotic if it's new to you. It's part of our cultural heritage, these vegetables used in desserts. And that's great.

To quell the Greeks' disturbance over my 'crazy' carrot dessert, I thought I'd explore olive oil desserts. There are not many, but they do exist. One is an olive oil and lemon sorbet and the other is an Olive Oil Cake. Both of these recipes include an olive oil and fruit compote, which really is a great way to serve something unique and delicious. What is important when you're making a dessert with so few ingredients is that you use the absolute best pure olive oil and ripe fruit.

I served both of these desserts to non-Greek people for whom carrots are okay dessert ingredients and olive oil was exotic. The cake with citrus compote was a real hit - in part because people feel better about eating a dessert with healthy olive oil than they do about butter. The lemon-olive oil sorbet was not as great a hit, but would be an excellent finish to a light meal or especially at an olive oil tasting.

Don't be afraid to think outside the 'box' when it comes to dessert ingredients - the 'box', as you can see, is of our own making.