This vibrant, delicious, and ridiculously easy raspberry coulis recipe makes a versatile sweet sauce that has a variety of applications. You can use it as a topic for ice cream, cheesecake, or brownies, or make it a little bit thicker and fill with it your favorite cupcakes and cakes.
What berries to choose
The coulis can be made of any fruit, berry, and even some vegetables! So, when it’s possible to use fresh raspberries, go for it! However, if you make your sauce from fruits and berries which are not in season, don’t hesitate to use frozen ones (make sure you thaw them before pureeing). For your convenience, if you bake a lot or if you bake for profit, you can buy premade fresh and frozen (like this Funkin Raspberry Puree) to make your berry sauce.
Ingredients and substitutes
Frozen raspberries – Or you can use any fresh or frozen berries or fruit.
Sugar - I use regular granulated sugar, but you can use powdered, castor, coconut, or brown sugar. You can also adjust the amount of it to your taste.
Lemon juice - You can also use orange juice or a splash of your favorite liquor.
Cooking tips
Always use a good-quality saucepan for all your dessert sauce and filling recipes! A heavy bottom will conduct the heat evenly which will help to cook your sauce correctly without burning the berries.
Sieve your sauce! Even if you’re making your coulis sauce with another berry (let’s say strawberries), you should sieve the berries after pureeing them. Sieving will help to remove larger fiber bits, possible seeds, and hard particles, leaving you with an extra smooth sauce.
Use medium-low to low heat! Coulis is the sauce that requires no (yes, you can just blend fresh berries with powdered sugar to make “raw” coulis) to very gentle heat treatment to keep the unique fruit and berries fresh taste.
Adjust sweetness to your taste. Berries are not created equal, so you have to try your sauce before you finish cooking to have time to adjust sweetness to your liking.
Step by step directions
1. Blend the berries using an immersion blender, stand blender, or food processor until smooth.
2. Sieve the mixture with a fine-mesh strainer over a heavy-bottomed saucepan, pressing with a rubber spatula.
3. Add the sugar and lemon juice and cook for around 5 minutes over medium-low heat until start simmering and the sugar has melted (optional: add the corn starch slurry and cook for 1 minute, or until it thickens up).
4. Cool down at room temperature and serve. Or, store in a 400ml/14fl oz glass container.
How to make a thick raspberry coulis
Usually, berry coulis has a very runny consistency which makes it perfect for drizzling on top of different desserts – but sometimes it needs to be thicker to become useful as cupcakes or a cake filling. There are several ways to thicken up the sauce and which one you choose boils down to your desired texture and stability.
You can thicken your berry sauce by adding cornstarch, gelatin, pectin (I recommend using a thermally reversible pectin NH), or just simmering the mixture for longer to evaporate the excess water.
The pectin and gelatin gelling agents will give you a stable coulis that you can use as a cake filling (even for multiple tired cakes) and you can freeze it and thaw through the fridge without any problems.
In the recipe card, I explain how you can make your very berry sauce thicker using some cornstarch. However, the downside of any liquids that were thickened with cornstarch is that you can't freeze them and they will degrade over time in the fridge. Usually, it takes up to 4 days until a mixture thickened with starch starts to become soupy in the fridge.
Serving ideas
You can use the raspberry sauce to pour on top of your cheesecake, pancakes, ice cream, and even your morning yogurt. If you make a thicker version of the coulis, use it as a delicious filling for cupcakes like these Best vanilla cupcakes, or these Easy chocolate cupcakes.
FAQ
It will last for up to one week. Made with cornstarch, it will last 3-4 days.
You can freeze it for up to 3 months in an air-tight container. However, if you use cornstarch to thicken the sauce, you should not freeze it at all. The cornstarch can’t withstand the freezing and thawing process.
More dessert resipes
Recipe card
Raspberry coulis
Equipment
- Rubber spatula
- Digital kitchen scale
Ingredients
- 500 g fresh or frozen raspberries thaw if using frozen berries
- 60 g granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
For cupcakes or cake filling (optional)
- 1 ½ tablespoon corn starch
- 2 tablespoon water
Instructions
- Blend the berries using an immersion blender, stand blender, or food processor until smooth.
- Place a fine-mesh strainer over a heavy-bottomed saucepan and sieve the berry puree, pressing with a rubber spatula to remove the seeds and make the sauce extra smooth.
- Add the sugar and lemon juice and cook for around 5 minutes over medium-low heat, depending on how thick you want your sauce to be, or until the sugar dissolves completely.
- Cool down at room temperature and serve. Or, store in a 400ml/14fl oz glass container.
To make cupcakes or cake filling (optional)
- Combine the corn starch and water until slurry forms. Add to the saucepan and mix well to distribute in the berry sauce after it has been cooking for 5 minutes or so.
- Simmer the mixture over medium-low heat for one minute or until thickened. Then, remove from the heat and let it cool down to room temperature before using.
- Or, place a cooled-down raspberry sauce into a piping bag, close it and refrigerate until ready to be used as a filling.
Lora says
I made it with cornstarch for my vanilla cupcakes, it was a success 🙂