Fresh Apricot with Almonds Cookies - Revised

All About the Fresh Apricot

Apricots have a growing season from May to July. I wanted to redo this cookie recipe to get step-by-step pictures, but since it is near the end of July, the apricots are almost too ripe in the grocery stores.

After cutting them into small pieces, I had to compensate for the ripe apricots. A little trick is if you have apricots that are getting mushy when you are dicing them up, I put them in a mesh strainer and rinse them off. This way, you are just getting the apricot pieces.

Then get a plate, lay a paper towel on the plate, and dump the apricot pieces on the paper towel. I then take another paper towel and pat the tops of the apricots.

This helps soak up some of the apricot fruit juices. If you skip this step, your cookie batter may become too wet, and you will have difficulty baking the cookies. The big takeaway is if there is juice after you cut up the fresh apricots, you want to absorb as much liquid as possible before adding them to the cookie batter.

How to peel an apricot from eHow;

Ingredients

Cookie Dough

• All-purpose flour
• Sugar white
• Baking powder
• Butter unsalted
• Kosher Salt
• Orange zest
• Orange juice fresh
• Vanilla Extract
• Fresh Apricots
• Almonds sliced

ICING

• White chocolate wafers

Blanch Your Fruit

First, you can take a sharp knife and cut the skin off. But if you want to have as much of the apricot's flesh as possible, you can blanch them and peel the skin.

Cut a cross at the top and bottom of your apricots. You need to score the skin, so don't go too deep.

Have a bowl of cold water with ice near the pan where you are boiling the water to blanch the apricots. Bring the water to a boil, turn off the burner, and add the apricots. You will want to leave them in hot water for about a minute before moving them to the ice water.

I take a knife and peel the skin away where you cut the cross at the top. If you run into an issue with it peeling nicely, you can always use your knife to simply peel the apricot.

Cut the peeled apricot in half and take out the pit. Next, cut the apricot into small pieces. You can rinse the cut-up piece in a strainer if there are mushy pieces. But whether you rinse the apricots or not, you want to lay the diced apricots onto a paper towel to help absorb the fruit juices.

Making Apricot Cookies

I think my recipe for apricot cookies is the best I have come across. These are easy to make, and you can't beat fresh apricots and white chocolate together. Throw in some sliced almonds, and you will become an apricot fan.

So you want to start by weighing the sugar and setting it aside. Next, weigh or measure the dry ingredients; flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl. Finally, I run a whisk through to mix the dry ingredients, but you can also sift them together if you like.

The final step for prepping is to zest an orange into a bowl. Cut the orange in half, and either use a citrus juicer (OXO) or a Chef'n Citrus orange squeezer I prefer the juicer with a measuring cup.

Add the room temperature butter and sugar into a mixer bowl and mix on a medium speed for about 3 minutes. You want soft peaks on the side of the bowl.

Scrape down the bowl sides and add the vanilla extract, orange juice, and orange zest, mix for a minute. Turn the mixer down to a low speed and slowly incorporate the dry flour mixture. Scrape down the sides and add the fresh apricots and sliced almonds.

Take a solid spatula and ensure the apricots and almond slices look pretty even throughout the cookie batter. Cover loosely and refrigerate for about an hour.

Add twelve scoops to a cookie sheet pan using a medium cookie scooper and bake at 350°F (175°C or 180°C) for 12-14 minutes. I leave the cookies on the sheet pan after they come out of the oven for a minute, then move them to a cooling rack.

White Chocolate Icing

Adding icing or glazes to a cookie requires a balance of sweetness. If you add too much that will be all you taste so, I use it sparingly to compliment the cookie.

Add the white chocolate wafers to a microwave-safe bowl and heat on high for 30 seconds. Take the bowl out of the microwave and stir and then heat for another 15 seconds. Stir one more time, and if the wafers are not melted completely, you can heat them for another 10 to 15 seconds. You don't want to continue too many times, or the white chocolate will get hard and unusable.

I decided to use the Wilton #3 tip along with a small piping bag to add the white chocolate icing onto the tops of the cookie.

Going back and forth over the top of the cookie ensures that there will be a little white chocolate with every bite. I leave the cookies on the rack for about half an hour to make sure the icing has set.

Hope you enjoy these cookies!!!