Western cooking is known for myriad sauces, but when it comes to dessert, pastry cooks stick with their favorite five: raspberry, apricot, chocolate, creme anglaise and caramel.
Having dessert sauces on hand allows you to take the finale of a meal to even greater heights. At least one of these basic sauces may be used for just about any dessert.
Use these sauces to make something special from something simple. Try apricot sauce over vanilla ice cream, raspberry sauce over pound cake, or caramel over fresh berries.
The five principle dessert sauces given here (plus butterscotch, an American cousin to caramel) are easy to make and all but one keep indefinitely frozen or refrigerated.
RASPBERRY SAUCE
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Yield: About 1 cup
Because fresh raspberries must be poached, using frozen raspberries in syrup simply eliminates the longest step in the process without compromising the results. Strawberries may be substituted.
1 box (10 ounces) frozen raspberries packed in syrup, thawed
Optional:
Superfine sugar
Framboise (raspberry-flavored liqueur)
1. Blend the raspberries with their juice in a blender or food processor until smooth. Add sugar and liqueur to taste, if desired. (If berries are not in syrup at least 1/2 cup of sugar will be needed to balance their acidity.) 2. Push sauce through a fine wire mesh strainer into a bowl, rubbing with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, and discard the seeds.
Note: Freezes well. Serve with fruits such as poached peaches or pears, vanilla ice cream, fruit-filled crepes and chocolate cake.
APRICOT SAUCE
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes
Yield: About 1 cup
1 cup apricot jam or preserves
1/3 cup water
1 tablespoon sugar
1-2 tablespoons kirsch, Cognac or rum
1. Place jam, water and sugar in a small saucepan. Heat to a boil. Cook very slowly about 5 minutes, stirring often.
2. Push mixture through a fine wire mesh strainer into a bowl to remove all pulp; add liqueur. (The pulp may be reserved and used as jam on toast.)
Notes: May be refrigerated indefinitely. Serve with berries, apple desserts, ice cream and cheesecake.
CHOCOLATE SAUCE
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 2 minutes
Yield: 1 cup
4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup brewed coffee
1/4 cup ( 1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1. Melt chocolate with coffee in a metal mixing bowl set over a pan of simmering water (or in a microwave-safe bowl in the microwave oven). When melted, remove from heat and stir in the butter.
Notes: Keeps indefinitely refrigerated. Serve with poached pears, ice cream, cream puffs and plain cake.
CREME ANGLAISE
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes
Yield: 1 1/4 cups
This is the most challenging of the dessert sauces to make because the egg yolks can curdle easily. A trick is to add 1 teaspoon flour, which reduces the boiling temperature, allowing you to bring it just to a boil to achieve the correct results. An alternative is to melt a top-quality French vanilla ice cream, which is frozen creme anglaise.
1 cup whole milk
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar, or more to taste
1 teaspoon flour
2 teaspoons vanilla or other flavoring
1. Heat milk slowly to the boil in a small saucepan. Meanwhile, whisk yolks, sugar and flour to blend in a small bowl.
2. Whisk in 1/3 of the hot milk into the yolk mixture, then pour this mixture back into the remaining milk in the saucepan. While stirring and watching carefully, return the mixture to the boil. At this point the custard thickens (enough to coat the back of a spoon); immediately remove from the heat. Push through a fine wire mesh strainer into a bowl to remove lumps of flour. Stir in flavoring. Cool.
Note: Keeps a few days refrigerated. Serve warm or cold with berries, poached fruit, ice cream, chocolate cake and crepes.
CARAMEL SAUCE
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Yield: About 2 cups
Though this sauce today is usually made with cream, the old-fashioned way was with water, a method which will produce a no-fat version.
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup whipping cream or water
1. Blend sugar with 1/2 cup water in a heavy, medium saucepan. Heat to a boil. Cover pan tightly and boil over medium-high heat, until the bubbles are thick, 2 to 3 minutes. Uncover the pan and continue boiling, without stirring, until the syrup turns a light caramel brown.
2. Remove from heat and carefully add the cream or water (watch out for spattering), stirring until incorporated. Cool.
Note: Keeps indefinitely refrigerated. Serve warm or cold with cooked apples or pears, berries, ice cream, cream puffs and cake.
BUTTERSCOTCH SAUCE
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 8 minutes
Yield: About 2 cups
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2/3 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup whipping cream or half-and-half
1. Put butter, dark brown sugar and corn syrup in a heavy, medium saucepan. Heat to a boil; reduce heat and simmer about 8 minutes. Remove from heat; cool slightly. Carefully stir in cream.
Note: Keeps indefinitely refrigerated. Serve warm or cold with vanilla ice cream, pound cake, berries.
