Melba Sauce – Easy and Not Just For Sopranos!

You’ll love this delicious raspberry Melba sauce over just about anything – ice cream, waffles, and angel food cake spring to mind! You really only need three ingredients, although you can add more if you’d like.

What is melba sauce made of, and what does it have to do with music?

Melba sauce is a bright and tasty raspberry sauce you can use on ice cream, cheesecake, pancakes, waffles, yogurt, fruit, cake, toast, or really anything you’d like. You can also add it to milkshakes and Italian sodas.

The name comes from its use as the topping of a Peach Melba. The influential French chef Auguste Escoffier (at that time working at the Savoy Hotel in London) specially prepared this dessert for the Australian operatic soprano Dame Nellie Melba, upon her visit to London to perform Wagner’s opera Lohengrin in 1892.

The Duke of Orleans threw a dinner party to celebrate her performance. This party was the location of the Peach Melba’s debut.

You may recognize the “Bridal Chorus” from Lohengrin, commonly known as “Here Comes the Bride” or “Wedding March” and frequently played during wedding processions.

What is a peach melba?

The original dessert featured an ice swan sculpture, since a swan is featured in the opera. The swan held vanilla ice cream topped with peaches and spun sugar.

Years later, in 1900, Escoffier (by this time the head chef at the Carlton Hotel) celebrated the opening of the Carlton with his updated version of the Peach Melba. This time around, there was no swan sculpture, and the peaches were topped with raspberry puree.

This is the version that seems to have stuck, quite possibly because it’s much easier to throw raspberries in a blender than to make spun sugar. (In addition, it’s quite tasty.) In order to make it even fancier, you can pour brandy over the top and light it on fire for a truly spectacular dessert.

Want more dessert recipes like this one? Grab the E-Book!

Don’t forget dessert!
​
​

Download your Free E-Book featuring five simple desserts you can try this season – even if you’re not a pastry chef!

Send it my way!

We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at anytime.

Built with ConvertKit

Who was Dame Nellie Melba?

Nellie Melba was the first Australian to achieve recognition internationally as a classical musician. She was born Helen Porter Mitchell, but assumed the name Melba in honor of her hometown of Melbourne. You may recognize her from her image on the Australian $100 note (polymer version, not the older paper).

In addition to her successful career as the leading lyric soprano at Covent Garden and one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era, Melba raised large sums of funds to benefit war charities during the First World War. She also taught singing at the Melbourne Conservatorium.

Melba frequently sang the roles of Violetta in La Traviata, Rosina in The Barber of Seville, Mimi in La Boheme, and the titular role in Aida. You can listen to a recording of her singing “Ave Maria” here.

Does Melba sauce have seeds?

This one does, in order to make the recipe simpler.

However, many recipes call for straining out the raspberry seeds and pulp.

If you don’t want seeds in your sauce, you will want to round up a strainer or cheesecloth before getting too much further. That being said, I didn’t bother with this step.

Melba Sauce ingredients

Before you begin, you will need:

• One 6-ounce container of fresh raspberries
• 1/3 cup powdered sugar
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp corn starch (optional)

• Blender or food processor for blitzing the raspberries (or allow extra time and crush them with a fork)
• Measuring cups and spoons
• Saucepan for reducing the sauce
• Stirring utensil (I used a silicone spatula, which I then repurposed for scraping out all the sauce)

How to make Melba sauce

1. To begin, wash your raspberries and pour them into a blender or food processor. Then, blitz until pureed. If you want a seedless Melba sauce, now is where you can strain the puree through a strainer or cheesecloth. However, I left mine as is.
2. After that, add the raspberry puree to a saucepan, along with the sugar, lemon juice, and optional corn starch. Place over medium heat and stir to combine.
3. Then, once the mixture comes to a simmer, stir constantly and let cook for about 3 minutes, or until reduced to your preferred thickness.
4. Finally, remove from heat, pour into an airtight container for storage in your fridge, and let cool a bit. Serve and enjoy!

Pin it for later!

Variations on Melba Sauce

Try frozen raspberries instead of fresh to enjoy this dessert year round.

Many traditional recipes for Melba sauce include some red currant jam. Feel free to add this if you can find some.

As I mentioned in the directions, many people prefer to strain out the seeds and pulp from the raspberries and just use the juice. For this method, depending on the consistency you want the sauce to end up, you may need to cook it longer to let the liquid reduce.

As written, this sauce becomes fairly thick once it cools, so if you are looking for a liquid sauce to pour over ice cream, definitely skip the corn starch.

While not a variation, some people dip deep fried mozzarella sticks in Melba sauce, so don’t feel limited to just using this on desserts. Add some to a salad (fruit or otherwise), or use it for dipping anything rich like wings (or cauliflower wings, for instance).

If you found this article helpful, please consider joining my email newsletter community for new recipes delivered straight to your inbox!

Related dessert posts

You may also enjoy my strawberry rhubarb sauce.

While I used whipped cream to top my baba al rum recipe, Melba sauce would be delicious over these rum cakes!

It would also make a tasty addition to this apricot and lemon bobka, also known as Polish Easter bread.

I hope you enjoy this delicious recipe for Melba sauce!