VEGETABLE CANDY
Just because something is good for you, it doesn’t mean that it has to be boring or tasteless.
According to the global food analyst Mintel, confectionery made with vegetable ingredients could become a sweet reality for health-conscious parents. The most likely use for vegetable ingredients is as natural colouring agents and sweeteners, and potential ingredients include corn, sweet potato, yam and carrot. In Latin America and the US, an increasing number of products are already being produced with chilli and tamarind, and hidden vegetable ingredients could soon be in soft drinks and breakfast spreads.
If you’re interested to try it out for yourself, look up the 1912 cook book, Candy-Making Revolutionized, by Mary Elizabeth Hall (pictured). Way ahead of her time, Hall introduced decorative and artistic candy made with potato-based confection, moulded, coloured, and painted with vegetable colours. Log on to www.amazon.com to buy.
‘Have your cake & eat it!’ is Petit Pois Cakes ‘ motto. Replacing butter with vegetables, their creations have half the calories and fat of regular cakes, and are gluten and lactose free. Sold in boxes of two complementary flavours (Chocolate & Vanilla or Lemon & Orange), each cake has a thin layer of icing, topped with a little green pea, and you can’t taste the courgette, pumpkin or beetroot.
At the moment, Petit Pois Cakes are only available in the UK, but this is a trend that innovative bakeries are latching on to, so make enquiries.
If you would like to try baking yourself, buy Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache by Harry Eastwood, co-founder of Petis Pois, available at www.amazon.com and log on to www.petitpoiscakes.com for further information. (Image: Petis Pois Cakes)
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