This dessert sauce is sweet, tart, and extremely versatile. Visually appealing and delicious, this sauce adds a twist to both presentation and palate for many dessert recipes!

Ingredients

  • For every 5 ounces of raspberries, use ¼ cup of granulated sugar
  • Raspberries can be fresh or frozen
  • Yields about 1 cup of sauce with 15 ounces of raspberries and 1 ½ cups sugar
  • Note: if you use a different amount of raspberries, the timing will change – it takes less time with less raspberries and more time with more raspberries. 

Tools & Timing

  • Saucepan (I like to use one with deep edges when I make sauces to avoid splatter)
  • Heatproof whisk
  • Wooden spoon
  • Sieve
  • Large glass bowl
  • Optional: plastic squirt bottle or jam jars with lids
  • Recommended: a sink of hot, soapy water. You’ll want to rinse your wooden spoon, spatula, and sieve immediately because, while the color of this coulis is BEAUTIFUL, it can definitely stain!
  • Timing: about 20 minutes and 5 to wash up!

Background

This recipe actually is a piece of another recipe from Home Cooking Adventure. As I was making one portion of a recipe, the resulting sauce looked and smelled so good that I just had to taste it…and now I use this sauce on its own to enhance a variety of recipes. Added bonus: the sauce is so beautiful that it makes an excellent garnish as well as being a fantastic addition for layering flavor profiles.

Adapted from Home Cooking Adventure

Step-by-step

  1. Wash and dry raspberries. (If using frozen raspberries, rinse them to remove any frozen water.)
  2. Measure out the desired number of ounces of raspberries; careful here, sometimes frozen raspberries yield less than the weight listed on the package after they are rinsed! *I usually use 15 – 20 ounces of raspberries and 1 ½ – 2 cups of sugar respectively.
  3. Place raspberries in pan. Add correct sugar for raspberry: sugar ratio.
  4. Turn heat to medium high. Using a heatproof whisk, immediately begin to stir raspberries and sugar – the raspberries will slowly melt down as the sugar melts – cooking magic! It takes about 30 seconds for the sugar to melt down and become incorporated with the raspberries.
  5. Once the sugar has disappeared, continue to whisk frequently until the mixture comes to a boil (don’t worry – there will still large chunks of your berries). This takes another 3 minutes (if you used 15 ounces of raspberries).
  6. Once your berry sugar mixture begins to boil, turn the heat to medium low and simmer until all of the fruit chunks have broken down (about for 10 minutes for 15 ounces of raspberries). Continue to whisk frequently. 
  7. After all of the raspberries have been incorporated, strain the mixture through a sieve (see pics). You’ll want to stir the mixture in the sieve with a wooden spoon here so as to get the maximum amount of coulis from your efforts – and don’t forget to scrape the bottom of the sieve periodically with a firm spatula! Do this stir/scrape maneuver 4-5 times to get as much coulis as possible.
  8. Transfer to jam jars and let cool OR let cool in original glass container then transfer to plastic squeeze bottle. (Note: if using jam jars, you do not need to fill them completely as you would when canning jam.)
  9. Refrigerate for at least an hour before using.

Serve and Enjoy

  • Serve with brownies (see my recipe for Buttermilk Brownies coming soon) or with chocolate mousse (see my recipe for Simply Sinful Rich Chocolate Mousse Cups).
  • I have also served this with chocolate cheesecake, chocolate cupcakes, and dark chocolate orange cake (recipes to come).
  • This would also be fantastic with cheesecake or a white chocolate mousse – I see these options in my future!