Once upon a time, I tried making strawberry sauce. I mashed up the strawberries, added some Truvia and a bit of lemon juice, and let it cook over the stove until it thickened. Then I left it in the fridge overnight to set. Alas, there was no happy ending for me. The next morning when I poured the sauce over the almond flour pancakes I had been so excited to make, I discovered that instead of a luxuriously thick and sweet strawberry sauce, I had basically made…strawberry soup.

It was a watery FAIL.

Last week when I decided to make a blueberry sauce to put on top of my mini cheesecakes, I was excited at the prospect of giving fruit sauce another try. After all, it’s been over a year since my failed strawberry sauce, and I’d like to think that my culinary capabilities have grown in that time and that I’d be able to cook up something decent.

And I was right. This time my sauce was a complete success!

So what did I do differently? Well, after reading dozens of recipes for fruit sauce, I realized that I needed to incorporate two key ingredients into my recipe:

1 – A simple syrup mixture (which is a mixture of water and sugar)

2 – A thickener

This is not as easy as it sounds. Not when you’re trying to make things that are grain and sugar free. I read dozens of recipes that used sugar and cornstarch, but I didn’t want to use either of those ingredients.

I knew off the bat that I would be able to use Arrowroot Powder to thicken the sauce (all my ice cream making experience came in handy!). I wasn’t sure about the simple syrup, but eventually I stumbled upon a Simple Syrup recipe at the Truvia website (which really should have been the first place I checked, duh).

So, finally, after several hours of reading dozens of fruit sauce recipes and articles about arrowroot and cornstarch (THIS was a good one), I was finally able to come up with a decent recipe – which turned out AMAZING.

Sugar-free Blueberry Sauce

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of blueberries
• Truvia simple syrup – 2 tbs. of Truvia and 1/4 cup of water
• 1 tbs. of arrowroot powder and 1 tbs. of water, mixed well
• 1 tbs. of water (or more if needed)

Directions:

1. Heat up the simple syrup in a saucepan over a medium flame, then add the blueberries. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently.

2. Turn the flame to low and add the arrowroot and water mixture.

3. Do NOT freak out at how nasty and slimy it looks when you add the arrowroot powder. It will get better as you continue to stir.

4. Cook and stir for another two or three minutes, adding water here and there if it looks like it’s getting too thick.

That’s it! After letting it cool on the stove for awhile, I poured it into an old jar and stuck it in the fridge. The next day I took it with me to my grandma’s house, along with the mini cheesecakes. Everyone loved it – and I’m not just talking about the cheesecakes! The sauce was the perfect consistency, and it wasn’t overwhelmed by the Truvia.

Success!

Notes:

1 – I used tiny 1/2 cup plastic containers to mix the simple syrup and the arrowroot mixture. This way I was able to shake ’em up real good.

2 –  I must admit that I started to panic when I added the arrowroot powder. The texture became all gooey and slimy, and I thought to myself, “Oh my god, this looks so nasty, there is no way this sauce is going to turn out good.” I started pressing hard on the blueberries so they would burst, just so the clear slime would turn blue and be less noticeable. Even after I put it in the fridge, I was convinced it was gonna be gross. But when I tried it the next day at grandma’s, it was so good, and the texture was PERFECT! And it was completely slime-free. 🙂