Mondays at Il Forno - Cheesecake with strawberry sauce

A dessert sauce is a

sauce In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi-solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French wor ...

used for

dessert Dessert is a course that concludes a meal. The course consists of sweet foods, such as confections, and possibly a beverage such as dessert wine and liqueur. In some parts of the world, such as much of Greece and West Africa, and most parts o ...

s. It is drizzled or poured atop various desserts, and is also used for plate decoration. Dessert sauce adds flavor, moisture, texture and color to desserts, may be cooked or uncooked, and is sometimes prepared as a

hard sauce Hard sauce is a sweet, rich dessert sauce made by creaming or beating butter and sugar with rum (rum butter), brandy (brandy butter), whiskey, sherry (sherry butter), vanilla or other flavourings. It is served cold, often with hot desserts. It ...

with the addition of alcoholic beverages. It is used in various manners to add flavor to and enhance the visual presentation of desserts.

Etymology

French cuisine French cuisine () is the cooking traditions and practices from France. It has been influenced over the centuries by the many surrounding cultures of Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium, in addition to the food traditions of the re ...

, dessert sauces are often referred to as '' crèmes'', rather than sauces.

Overview

Dessert sauce is typically drizzled or poured atop various desserts, and may also be drizzled or poured on the plate. Dessert sauce examples include

caramel sauce Caramel ( or ) is an orange-brown confectionery product made by heating a range of sugars. It can be used as a flavoring in puddings and desserts, as a filling in bonbons, or as a topping for ice cream and custard. The process of caramelizati ...

custard Custard is a variety of culinary preparations based on sweetened milk, cheese, or cream cooked with egg or egg yolk to thicken it, and sometimes also flour, corn starch, or gelatin. Depending on the recipe, custard may vary in consistency fr ...

, crème anglaise, chocolate sauce,

dulce de leche ''Dulce de leche'' (; pt, doce de leite), also known as caramelized milk, milk candy or milk jam in English, is a confection from Latin America prepared by slowly heating sugar and milk over a period of several hours. The resulting substance, ...

, fruit sauces such as

blueberry sauce Blueberry sauce is a sauce prepared using blueberry, blueberries as a primary ingredient. It is typically prepared as a reduction (cooking), reduction, and can be used as a dessert sauce or savory sauce depending on the preparation. It can also b ...

raspberry The raspberry is the edible fruit of a multitude of plant species in the genus ''Rubus'' of the rose family, most of which are in the subgenus '' Idaeobatus''. The name also applies to these plants themselves. Raspberries are perennial with ...

sauce and

strawberry The garden strawberry (or simply strawberry; ''Fragaria × ananassa'') is a widely grown hybrid species of the genus '' Fragaria'', collectively known as the strawberries, which are cultivated worldwide for their fruit. The fruit is widely ap ...

sauce. Raspberry sauce may be strained using a

sieve A sieve, fine mesh strainer, or sift, is a device for separating wanted elements from unwanted material or for controlling the particle size distribution of a sample, using a screen such as a woven mesh or net or perforated sheet materia ...

to remove the seeds from the sauce. Dessert sauce adds flavor, moisture, texture, and color to desserts. It may be cooked or uncooked. Dessert sauce is sometimes prepared as a

with the addition of alcoholic beverages, such as bourbon,

brandy Brandy is a liquor produced by distilling wine. Brandy generally contains 35–60% alcohol by volume (70–120 US proof) and is typically consumed as an after-dinner digestif. Some brandies are aged in wooden casks. Others are coloured with ...

liqueur A liqueur (; ; ) is an alcoholic drink composed of spirits (often rectified spirit) and additional flavorings such as sugar, fruits, herbs, and spices. Often served with or after dessert, they are typically heavily sweetened and un-aged beyon ...

. Desserts with hard sauces can be served flambéed because the

ethyl alcohol Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is an alcohol with the chemical formula . Its formula can be also written as or (an ethyl group linked to a hyd ...

in distilled beverages is flammable. Drops of lemon flavoring may be added to the sauce as a fire

accelerant Accelerants are substances that can bond, mix or disturb another substance and cause an increase in the speed of a natural, or artificial chemical process. Accelerants play a major role in chemistry—most chemical reactions can be hastened with an ...

Uses

Dessert sauces are used on many desserts such as cake, cheesecake, pound cake, and ice cream. Dry and firm desserts may be enhanced by the use of a dessert sauce that soaks into the dessert, which adds moisture and flavor. File:Bavarian cream with strawberries and caramel sauce.jpg, Bavarian cream with

caramel Caramel ( or ) is an orange-brown confectionery product made by heating a range of sugars. It can be used as a flavoring in puddings and desserts, as a filling in bonbons, or as a topping for ice cream and custard. The process of carameli ...

sauce and strawberries Image:Creme anglaise et pain d'epices DSC00137.JPG, '' Crème anglaise'' served atop a slice of ''

pain d'épices ' or ' () is a French cake or quick bread. Its ingredients, according to ' (1694), were "rye flour, honey and spices". In Alsace, a considerable tradition incorporates a pinch of cinnamon. According to Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, the commercial ...

'' and pooled on the plate File:Profiteroles with chocolate and caramel sauce, February 2007.jpg,

Profiteroles A profiterole (), cream puff (US), or ''chou à la crème'' () is a filled French and Italian choux pastry ball with a typically sweet and moist filling of whipped cream, custard, pastry cream, or ice cream. The puffs may be decorated or left ...

with chocolate and caramel sauces drizzled on them

As decoration

Dessert sauce can be used to add visual art to desserts, by using the sauce to paint designs and imagery on them. A plastic squeeze bottle full of sauce can be used to aid in decoration. Dessert sauce is also used on plates that desserts are placed upon, and can be arranged in an artistic design. A toothpick or knife can be used to swirl the sauce on plates to create various designs. File:Cheesecake served with sauce in a restaurant.jpg, Cheesecake with a dessert sauce on the plate File:Crémeux de chocolat, mangue et caramel.JPG, A dessert with a caramel sauce decoration on the plate File:Cannolo with chocolate sauce.jpg, A

cannoli Cannoli (; scn, cannola ) are Italian pastries consisting of tube-shaped shells of fried pastry dough, filled with a sweet, creamy filling containing ricotta—a staple of Sicilian cuisine. They range in size from . In mainland Italy, they are ...

with a chocolate sauce decoration File:Gordon Ramsay Tart Tatin.JPG, A

Tarte Tatin The tarte Tatin (), named after the Tatin sisters who invented it and served it in their hotel as its signature dish, is a pastry in which the fruit (usually apples) is caramelized in butter and sugar before the tart is baked. It originated in ...

with a chocolate and caramel sauce decoration

Mass production

Some companies

mass-produce Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch ...

dessert sauces, such as

British Sugar British Sugar plc is a subsidiary of Associated British Foods and the sole British producer of sugar from sugar beet, as well as medicinal cannabis. British Sugar processes all sugar beet grown in the United Kingdom, and produces about two-thi ...

and

The Hershey Company The Hershey Company, commonly known as Hershey's, is an American multinational company and one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world. It also manufactures baked products, such as cookies and cakes, and sells beverages like milksh ...

, and market them under various brand names. These products are typically available for consumers in grocery stores and supermarkets.

References

External links

* {{Dessert sauces