Dessert Soups

Dessert soups are a fantastic way to showcase deliciously ripe fruit while ending the meal on the light side.

Because the idea is to capture the fruits’ wonderful flavors, the majority of these are uncooked, and since fruit is the highlight, getting what’s in season and delicious is key; this is no place to compromise on quality or flavor.

Dessert soups, like their savory cousins, can be either brothy, chunky, or puréed. All styles are equally easy to make. Here are a few pointers.

• Keep the flavors simple; let the fruit or other base ingredient speak for itself.
• Make the soup no more than a day in advance, if not just a couple hours before serving; these flavors are fleeting.
• In most recipes, you can substitute just about any ripe and flavorful fruit for any other.
• For puréed soups, the consistency should be like that of heavy cream, neither watery nor overly thick.
• If you like, add a scoop of ice cream, sour cream, crème fraîche, yogurt, Vegan Whipped Cream (page 701), sorbet, or granita; it adds another layer of flavor, texture, and temperature. Or, cut a fruit gelée (page 727) into cubes and add that as a garnish.

• Rhubarb-Orange Soup
• Watermelon and Mint Soup
• Sweet Coconut Soup