WACKY DESSERTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Many cuisines have traditional desserts made with unexpected ingredients. 
Here  are a few of them:

Vegetables
Americans havetheir zucchini bread, pumpkin pie and carrot cake.  Italians make a sweet tart with Swiss chrd or spinach sweetened with dried fruits.  Indian cooks often use vegetables such as cauliflower or carrots to make a pudding called kheer.

Potatoes
Sweet potato pie is a Southern specialty.  Mashed potatoes (and sometimes the water they are cooked in) add body to sweet breads, doughnuts and even candy.

Meat
These days, mincemeat is made from dried fruit, nuts and spices, but in 16th century England, minced lean meat, usually beef, and beef fat.  If you want meat in your dessert today, you'll have better luck with bacon, which shows up in everything from brownies and chocolate chip cookies to fudge.

Beans
Black bean brownies are a vegan staple. Mashedwhite beans can add moistness to cakes.  And what would Japanese and Chinese sweets be without red bean paste?

From A Can or Jar
American community cookbooks and recipe-sharing sites are full of recipes for novelty cakes made with ingredients such as tomato soup, sauerkraut and mayonnaise.  The accompanying text invariably insists, reassuringly: "Your guests will never guess what's in it."

Rice
Every country seems to have its own verison of rice pudding --- and that's only the beginning. Southeast Asians combine sticky rice with fruit and other seasonings.  Italians use Arborio rice in pies and cakes, sometimes in combination with ricotta cheese.  Arroz con Leche --- rice with milk --- is a popular dessert in Spain and Mexico.  Balls made from glutinous rice flour (sometimes with a bean paste filling) are a traditional part of many Chinese New Year celebrations.

Cornmeal
Resourceful American cooks have long used cornmeal to makehomey desserts, including chess pie and classic New England Indian pudding.  Polenta cake is popular in Italy, and Mexicans enjoy dessert tamales made with masa, a dough created from dried corn kernels.