Apricot Pie

Ok, so this pie is a typical example of how I work in my kitchen. The story goes like this…

A while ago my mother-in-law decided to drop by (unexpectedly, while I was busy working) and in her kindness brought me what seemed like a year supply of apricots. Little did she know that I am not the biggest fan of fresh apricots. I like the taste, just hate the texture. Does anybody else have that too? That you just can’t eat certain foods because of the texture rather than the taste? I have the same with lentils.

Anyway, nobody in our household was going to eat them, because my fiancé simply doesn’t eat fresh fruit - at all (no comment).

But what I hate even more than fresh apricots is throwing away food. So I had to do something with them. And since I like apricots in any other form than fresh, I went online to search for some nice recipes for apricot pie (yes, pie always seems like the best choice). I checked my supplies and saw that I had most of the needed ingredients. I printed out 3 different recipes, used the parts that I liked, discarded what I didn’t like (or have) and ended up making the easiest pie in the universe.

So this pie is a combination of three recipes and quite a bit of my own invention – greatly inspired by pure laziness, i.e. not feeling like going to the store and thus having to be creative with the ingredients that I had at hand. And it turned out amazing! And I love it when that happens!

U need (for 1 medium-sized pie)

For the pastry:

200 grams of regular flour (sifted)

½ teaspoon of baking powder

½ teaspoon of baking soda (or simply 1 teaspoon of baking powder)

½ teaspoon of salt

200 grams of soft butter, cut in cubes

freshly grated lemon peel from ½ lemon

100 grams of caster sugar

1 egg yolk

For the filling:

500 grams of apricot halves

½ cup of brown sugar

about ¼ cup of water

½ teaspoon of cinnamon

1 vanilla pod (scored down the length)

lemon juice from ½ lemon

1 tablespoon of butter

How to make it

Preheat the oven to 180 °C.

Making this pastry is so easy that at first I did not believe it would work, but trust me – it does! Simply mix the flour with the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the caster sugar, butter, lemon peel and egg yolk and mix it all with your hands until you get a quite soft, fluffy dough (this will take you about 30 seconds).

Take a cake form (I used my round Ø 26 cm quiche form) and line it with baking parchment and then spread the pastry on top of that. Try lining the cake form evenly. Bake for about 10 minutes at 180 °C.

In the meantime, make the filling. Take a small pan, put the sugar in it and add about ¼ cup of water. Start heating on a small fire until the sugar melts, stirring every now and then. Add the apricot halves, the cinnamon, vanilla pod and lemon juice and mix all the ingredients well. Keep this mixture on a very low heat until the juices reduce to form a delicious, thick and shiny syrup. Add the butter and mix in gently. Once the apricots are basically falling apart and all the liquid becomes nice and thick, the filling is done (don’t forget to take out the vanilla pod!).

Spread the filling over the pre-baked pastry (leave about 2 cm of the edges free) and put the pie in the oven for another 30 minutes or so, until golden brown.

Sprinkle with caster sugar before serving.

And you tell me how it turned out!