Lemon Cider Sauce Recipe

This easy and versatile sauce is great with all sorts of simple fall and winter cakes and fruit desserts. It’s much quicker and easier than a custard, since it’s thickened with cornstarch (corn flour) instead of egg yolks. It goes like this:

3.5 ounces (1/2 cup sugar)
1 tablespoon 1 teaspoon cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup apple cider
1/3 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice
grated zest of 1 lemon

In a small sauce pan whisk together the sugar, starch, spices and salt. Whisk in the cider and set the pan over medium heat. Bring it to a simmer, whisking it all the while for about one minute. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the lemon juice and zest. Serve warm.

11 thoughts on “Lemon Cider Sauce Recipe”

  1. Apple cider is one of my favorite things about fall/winter! Love this recipe 🙂 How awesome would this be over ice cream or yogurt?!

    1. Hey Samantha!

      Believe it or not this sauce is usually made with a cup of water and a tablespoon of butter. Personally I think some sort of juice works better…apple juice or cider.

      – Joe

    2. I’ve made a very similar sauce w/orange juice to a very excellent result. I’m sure that cranberry juice (might cut down on the sugar depending on how sweet the juice is…) would also be a choice substitute, but as Joe said, it’s traditionally made w/water…so juice is usually an improvement!

  2. Is this cider alcoholic or not? What I would call cider or what I would call apple juice?

    1. Cider can be either hard or soft in the States. Both are unfiltered, so they have that brown color. If you can’t find cider then apple juice will work just fine!

      – Joe

        1. One has all the bits of apple flesh and skin still in it, making it brown. That’s what we call apple cider. The other has all that filtered out, making it golden. We call that apple juice. If we let cider ferment it’s hard cider in our parlance.

          Is it anything like that in New Zealand?

  3. We don’t have anything called soft cider. We have cider, which is alcoholic, and we have juice, which is not. No distinction is made between juice with and without bits. Apple juice with bits is not, to my knowledge, available in bottles, but you would get it freshly extracted at a juice bar. Apple juice is actually not a big thing here, it’s mostly used as an extender for other more expensive juices.

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