Mistake = Delicious?
Sometimes a mistake can result in a delicious surprise. That’s what happened to us the first time Nelson made this tasty sauce. Let me explain.
A few years back we spent a winter weekend at a cottage with friends, to do some cross-country skiing and skating.
We brought everything we’d need to make all our meals. Well, almost everything. We discovered that we’d forgotten a necessity–our Canadian pure maple syrup (it’s the only way we roll).
For me, not being well-versed in the kitchen, I assumed that meant our pancake breakfast was a flop. Thank goodness Nelson’s got good sense in the kitchen and can figure things out.
Here’s something I admire in Nelson…
…he can look at a variety of food in the fridge and figure out a full meal just like that. I, on the other hand, look in the fridge, and, unless there’s a left-over meal that I can heat up, I see nothing. Sad…I know. I’m not proud. 🙁
So back at the cottage and our maple syrup emergency… you know where this is going. Nelson took a carton of blueberries, some sugar, and badda-bing-badda-boom, a pancake sauce was created. It seems so obvious in hind-sight, but I really wouldn’t have thought of that. Nelson’s my culinary Macgyver.
We’ll always love maple syrup!
We still love pure maple syrup on our pancakes, but sometimes a little variety is a good thing. This berry sauce was freaken awesome.
We decided that this cannot be reserved solely for the obvious–pancakes and waffles. Oh ya! This sauce is going on ice-cream, cheesecake, french toast, and… we’ll take suggestions.
Try something different. You might be pleasantly surprised. And always eat well, friends!
- ¼ cup water
- 1 tbs cornstarch
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 cups quartered strawberries, no stem
- ¾ cups raspberries
- ½ cup blueberries
- Add the water and cornstarch to a medium pot.
- Whisk the cornstarch until it dissolves in the water.
- Add the sugar and turn on the heat to medium high.
- After one minute, add all the fruit and stir to combine all ingredients.
- Once the mix starts to boil, reduce the heat to medium low and cover.
- Let simmer for 10 minutes, stir every 3 or so minutes.
- Uncover and shut off the heat.
- Let cool down. The compote will thicken a bit.
- Serve warm or cold on pancakes, waffles, ice cream or any other dish that will go with sweet yummy fruits and syrup.
This looks fabulous! I’ve never tried making a compote – you make it sound so easy! I’ve got all of these ingredients on hand – I’m guessing I can use thawed berries (drained of liquid) if I don’t have fresh on hand, right? Thanks for this recipe! 🙂
Hi Amy, thanks so much for the compliment! It is really that easy. The beauty of the recipe is that you also get jam for the next day’s toast 🙂 You can totally use from frozen… just leave out 1/2 the water. Let me know how it goes. Good luck.
I made this compote earlier today, l only had frozen berries, it still worked just fine. I added lemon juice for a lit’ kick. Absolutely delicious 🙂
Hi Carolyn, thanks for letting us know! Our family loves this topping on pancakes, crepes and ice cream! We’re so happy to know others are enjoying it as well. Happy cooking!
OMG! This is exactly how our family fruit compote was born! And now I can’t stop making compote for pancakes, yogurt, dessert or just eating by the spoonful out of a bowl. Love this story and recipe!
Thank you very much