Coulis to crème anglais: 6 Dessert sauces that totally lift your party menu

From using it for plating and presentation to dressing up the sweet concoctions, here's how to whip up a variety at home.

What is a beautiful dessert if not an artful presentation? And a well-made sauce can really go to enhance the look and taste of it. No wonder then, that good cooks always have a list of these handy. The advantage is that the sauces can be made ahead of time and cooled (or warmed) before a dessert is served it to guests at a party.Chef and food content creator Saloni Kukreja shows to make the best of these desserts sauces made right in your kitchen. Don the apron and get started…

Drizzled or poured over, nothing enhances a dessert like a well-made sauce (Shutterstock)

 

A rich hot fudge sauce adds to decadent chocolate desserts (Shutterstock)

Hot fudge sauce

• Perfect for classic vanilla-based desserts or those Instagrammable, decadent chocolate desserts.
• ⁠It's a blend of cream, sugar, dark chocolate and cocoa.
• ⁠To add an extra shine and fudgy texture, using glucose instead of some of the sugar in the recipe works like magic.

Whip up a white chocolate sauce to go with your milk-based desserts (Shutterstock)

Caramelised white chocolate sauce

• Ideal for fruit-based and milk-based desserts, where you need subtle toasty and caramel notes to bring out the flavours.
• ⁠Caramelizing the white chocolate on a low temperature in the oven adds a beautiful toasted milk note.
• ⁠Combine it with milk and a bit of glucose to make it a silky smooth dessert sauce.
• ⁠It goes great with warm desserts as well.

Coulis is a thick sauce prepared with puréed fruits (Shutterstock)

Coulis

• The perfect bright dessert sauce that is perfect with seasonal fruits.
• ⁠Unlike a compote, it has a silky smooth texture and brings out the concentrated flavour of the fruit really well.
• ⁠Works really well with plated desserts because of it’s visual appeal.
• ⁠It’s typically made starting with a sugar syrup base and blending it with the fruit, then straining the mix to get a silky smooth texture.

 

This classic French sauce has a delicious, custard-like consistency (Shutterstock)

Crème anglaise

• An egg-based pouring custard based sauce, which is super versatile.
• ⁠This is a classic French dessert sauce which is rich and creamy because of the egg yolks in it.
• ⁠It is lightly sweetened with sugar and flavoured with vanilla.
• ⁠Using good quality vanilla is extremely important because of the mild flavour of the sauce.

 

Salted caramel sauce can be drizzled over cake, ice cream, cookies and more. (Shutterstock)

Salted caramel sauce

• This has become an absolute crowd favourite.
• It is buttery and has silky smooth caramel with an extra kick of saltiness.
• ⁠Works well with cakes and ice cream as a frosting as well as a ganache.
• ⁠It’s made by caramelizing the sugar and whisking it with salted butter and fresh cream until it is homogeneous.
• ⁠Add a bigger grain of salt makes the salt come through really well.

Compote is a versatile, fruit-based sauce that can be served warm or cool (Shutterstock)

 

Compote

• Compote is a thick, fruit-based dessert sauce, which brings out the texture of the fruit really well.
• ⁠It’s a great layering sauce owing to the bursts of flavour that the fruit adds to the dessert.
• ⁠Goes very well in ice creams, tarts and crumbles.
• ⁠Compote is made using whole fruit, sugar and some form of starch, which acts as a thickener. Unlike a coulis it is not blended smooth, but left a bit thicker.