your notes:
strawberry sauce
We think you’ll be berry pleased with this sweet sauce that’s studded with chunks of fresh strawberries–pour it over ice cream, waffles, pancakes, and more!
hey curious cook—
Have you heard about our Young Chefs’ Club? Members get a themed (and kid-tested) box delivered each month!
Prepare Ingredients
Gather Cooking Equipment
Working with 1 strawberry at a time, place strawberries on their sides on cutting board and use knife to carefully cut off tops with leafy green parts. Discard strawberry tops.
Transfer hulled strawberries to medium saucepan. Use potato masher to mash until fruit is mostly broken down.
Food for Thought
A Berry Nice Topping
How do two ingredients, cooked for just 10 minutes, transform from whole strawberries and grainy sugar into a thick, sweet, glossy ice cream topping? Mashing the strawberries with a potato masher is the first key—it releases the strawberry juices into the saucepan. Those juices contain a lot of water. As you cook the strawberry-sugar mixture, the sugar dissolves into the water in the strawberry juice, creating a sweet, strawberry‑flavored syrup. Cooking also causes some of the water in the strawberries to evaporate. That helps make the strawberry sauce thick and pourable. And don’t forget about those mashed whole strawberries! As they cook, the heat breaks down the cells in the strawberries, which makes them softer, but since they’re cooked for only 10 minutes, they keep their chunky shape.
