Dessert To Go: An Easy, Portable Apricot Shortbread Recipe

Still craving the intoxicating perfume and intensity of an apricot, I opened a jar of apricot jam and doctored it with crystallized ginger, amaretto-plumped dried apricots and sliced, blanched almonds. Remembering a jam-filled thumbprint shortbread cookie I’d had, I lathered this mixture onto a shortbread base. Once baked, the squares proved sturdy enough to wrap up and send in a school lunchbox or picnic basket. They tote along happily to barbecues, too, and make an easy dessert any night of the week.

Apricots lend themselves to ginger and almonds, but also to orange blossom water and tea. If I want to accentuate the almond flavor, I soak the dried fruit in amaretto, the Italian almond liqueur. To accentuate the apricot flavor, I might instead plump them in Abricot du Roussillon, a French apricot liqueur. For a floral note, I’ll use orange blossom water. And if I have none of the above in my pantry, a little tea does the trick.

It is best to use dried apricots that aren’t so very dry, but if yours are, then plump them in simmering water for a minute or two and then drain them before tossing with the liqueur. If serving a crowd, increase the recipe by half and use a 9-by-13-inch pan. The baking time should remain roughly the same.

If you hanker for berries, try using 2 cups of strawberry jam and replacing the ground ginger with cardamom; add a teaspoon of rose water to the jam and swap in chopped pistachios for the almonds. (Needless to say, eliminate the dried apricots and ginger.) My only caution: Avoid overly sweetened jams. Whatever the fruit, you don’t want anything masking its flavor.

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A perfectly ripe apricot is exquisite—and rare. These jammy shortbread bars get intense flavor from dried fruit and other pantry staples

F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal, Food Styling by Kim Ramin

Ingredients

• 1 cup dried apricots
• 2 tablespoons amaretto, orange blossom water, apricot brandy or tea
• 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• ¼ cup light brown sugar
• ¼ teaspoon almond extract
• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 ⅓ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 ½ cups apricot jam
• 1 cup crystallized ginger
• 1 cup sliced almonds

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper, leaving a 3-inch overhang on all sides.
2. In a bowl, pour amaretto over dried apricots and set aside somewhere warm to let the fruit plump up.
3. Meanwhile, make the shortbread: Use an electric mixer to cream butter with both sugars until pale and fluffy. Add almond and vanilla extracts and beat to integrate. Remove beaters from mixing bowl and set a sieve on top. Sift in flour, ginger and salt. Fold in until no streaks of flour remain. Gather shortbread dough into a ball. Tear off roughly a third, wrap that piece in parchment and refrigerate. Press remaining dough into bottom of parchment-lined pan. Gently pat dough to make a roughly even layer. Bake 15 minutes.
4. While shortbread layer is baking, dice ginger into ¼-inch pieces and place in a bowl. Add jam and stir to combine. Drain apricots, preserving liquid, and dice into ¼-inch pieces. Stir diced apricots into jam along with liquid.
5. Remove shortbread layer from oven, but leave oven on. Spread jam mixture over shortbread. Scatter surface with almond slices. Remove remaining dough from refrigerator. Push off little bits of this dough, scattering them across jam layer on top of shortbread. Bake until shortbread bits on top are golden. 25 minutes.
6. Set pan on a cooling rack and let cool to room temperature. Cut into 9 squares and serve, or keep overnight in an airtight container.

—Adapted from Aleksandra Crapanzano