Friday, January 14, 2011

Sweet sweet Friday: Apricot Chews

My friend Jeremy, a filmmaker, stay-at-home dad and Renaissance man, recently told me that multi-tasking was overrated. Yesterday, after managing to simultaneously burn a pot of porridge and embarrass myself by running down our street in my threadbare nightie to catch the binmen while writing a blog post, I felt inclined to agree. But right now I am writing while consuming possibly the best biscuits I have ever made - and multi-tasking seems like a very good thing indeed.


I've had this recipe for nearly nine years and can't understand why I've never made it before. It comes from my dearest friend Anna, an amazingly talented artist, crafter, cook and gardener. Anna and I shared a house together for a year in a funny New Zealand provincial city, where she taught me to bake, sew and occasionally pose for drawing purposes. We've been separated by geography for most of the time since then, but my notebooks are full of her recipes and when we talk on the phone her laugh still sounds like music.

Anna's Apricot Almond Chews
You do need a food processor for this recipe, so if you don't have one, go and find someone who does. (Put a coat on over your pyjamas first.)

250g ground almonds
80g (1/2 cup) dates, roughly chopped
80g (1/2 cup) dried apricots, roughly chopped
4Tbsp brown sugar
4Tbsp maple syrup (or golden syrup, or date syrup, or a mixture of the two)
grated zest of an orange
1 egg white
about 2/3 cup desiccated coconut

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line a baking sheet with baking paper. Throw all the ingredients except the coconut into a food processor and whiz until you get a chunky paste. Divide into walnut-sized balls and roll in the coconut. Put on the baking tray and press down slightly. Bake for 10-12 minutes until light golden brown. Cool on a rack and store in an airtight container. Delicious for breakfast while blogging...

Do you have an end of the week sweet treat? Add it here to spread the sweetness of Fridays... Pin It

10 comments:

  1. Recipe looks great, thanks, will be giving it a try soon. Can you tell me more about Blog Hop? Thanks

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  2. Hi Peggy (and anyone else who may be puzzled) - blog hops do just what it says on the tin. The idea is that you add a link to something on your blog (where it says 'click to enter' above) and then people can 'hop' from my blog to yours (and so on and so on and so on...) Make sense?

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  3. Isn't it weird how long it sometimes takes us to get to the good stuff? I love these sort of slightly virtuous recipes especially for the kids. I'm still in holiday mode at the themoment but will make more of an effort to join the blog hop in the coming months.

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  4. HI Lucy., Yey I've embedded the code in my page and managed to continue the blog hop over on my blog. Not sure if I've copied the wording ok....please let me know if it's right and if I should use the Sweet sweet Friday title...

    Have a good weekend, Deb

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  5. Your post has made me laugh. I originally thought it was your friend Jeremy who burnt the pot of porridge and then ran down the street in your nightie. All jokes aside these biscuits sound amazing, in my opinion any biscuit with apricot in it can't be bad ;0)

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  6. These biscuits sound and look great. I have all the ingredients apart from dates, so a quick trip to the market and I'll be sure to give this a try.

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  7. Now THAT is some productive multi-tasking there :) mmm even the name Apricot Almond Chews is making me drool, I bet I could eat 10 in a row by the look of them!

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  8. I actually have all these ingredients in my cupboard and I was waiting for that certain something to do with it all... and now I have no excuse... get your blog hop activated... here I come!

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  9. Your biscuits look and sounds delicious. Great combo with the apricots and dates. Great story also. I'm new here and will enjoy following to see what's next. Love your header!

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  10. Fabulous... I am sending this to my dearest friend who is coeliac and my brother, who can tolerate neither gluten nor dairy! A winner!

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Hello - thanks for stopping by. If this was real life I'd make you a cup of tea and open the biscuit tin, but in lieu of those things, let's have a chat anyway...