Give me your tired, your cottony, your flavorless apricots! I will bake you a cake!
Then, apparently, I will deliver half of it to a friend, and spend the next couple of days hacking away at what’s left, fighting the urge to dig out the apricots and eat them straight. I had forgotten about apricots, the way they brighten and bloom in the oven. They’re the Clark Kent of summer stone fruits. (Minus the glasses and unfortunate side part.) Pretty enough, but – unless you get your hands on a real winner – they don’t exactly get your heart pumping. Until they duck into the nearest oven, that is. When they come out, they’re super.
Apricots cooked are apricots revived. Suddenly, they have a pulse. They’re breathing, beating, hello-my-baby apricots. And they don’t need cake, or much of anything, really, to make your day. (The cake, for the record, was good, though I do prefer the apple version.) So. My next round of apricots I cut in half and dredged through some of the vanilla sugar that I had left over from that pound cake. I lay them shoulder to shoulder in a casserole dish, and bathed them in a shallow pool of white wine, just deep enough to cover their bottoms. Then, into the oven.
They came out super, all right. Rich and fragrant, buttery and bold, lounging in winey syrup flecked with vanilla seeds. I’ve been on a pistachio kick lately, so I chopped some up to sprinkle on top and tossed them with a hefty pinch of cardamom. I’d just been reading about the pairing of cardamom and apricot, and it seemed a wise move. We ate them hot, straight from the oven, that first night, cold with yogurt the next morning for breakfast, and room temperature the following night when I made them for a dinner with friends. My friend Megan took one bite and said, “This tastes like a baked good.” I’ve never heard someone use the word “baked good” in normal conversation, least of all to describe a piece of fruit. These apricots will surprise you.
They’re the kind of thing you might want to eat at the beginning of a hot summer day, or at the end of one, at a barbecue, say, beneath an exploding sky. Happy Fourth, friends. And Happy 236th birthday, America. You don’t look a day over 235. Really, you don’t.
Sugared Apricots with Cardamom Pistachios
You’ll notice that I’ve dotted the apricots with butter in one of the photos up there. I did that the first couple of times I made them, but then I stopped, because I found that my favorite way to eat these is chilled. They taste less sweet that way, which I like. What I didn’t like was the bits of butter floating in the cold syrup. If you’re going to eat them warm – also a pleasure, don’t get me wrong – then butter away! But honestly, I didn’t miss it.
I wish I could say something smart and informed about what kind of white wine is best, but I’m not very knowledgeable about these things. If you have a strong feeling about what would be particularly good here, or even just a hunch, please speak up! I used a Moscato d’Asti. It’s very sweet, not something we would usually buy, but someone brought it over one time, so we had it around. It worked beautifully, but I’d like to experiment with less sweet wines in the future. I don’t think you can go wrong.
Finally, about the vanilla sugar: Since making this pound cake, I’ve kept a sealed jar of scraped vanilla beans and sugar in the pantry. It just gets more and more fragrant with time. To make your own, split a vanilla bean and scrape the seeds into a bowl of sugar. I’ve seen instructions that say to use anywhere from 1 cup to 1 pound. I use enough to fill a one-quart mason jar. Rub the seeds into the sugar with your fingers, pour half of the sugar into a jar, bury the scraped seed, and add the rest of the sugar. Seal, and let sit for at least a few days, preferably a couple of weeks or more. If you don’t want to wait that long to make this recipe (and you shouldn’t), rub the seeds into a cup of sugar (you’ll only need a few tablespoons) and you can use it right away. The vanilla flavor will be plenty strong. I love the way the sugar melts and the vanilla seeds spill into the syrup, here. It’s very pretty.
6-8 apricots, halved, stones removed
3-4 tablespoons vanilla sugar (see note for how to make your own, above)
½ c. white wine
1/3 c. shelled, salted pistachios
1-2 pinches cardamom
Heat the oven to 425 degrees.
Measure the vanilla sugar into a shallow bowl or pie plate. Press the apricot halves into the sugar to coat them (both sides), then place them skin side down in a casserole dish. (Dot with butter, if using. See header notes.)
Add the wine to the dish, taking care to pour it into a space between the apricots so that you don’t wash off the sugar. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the apricots have deepened in color, puckered around the edges, and barely resist the fork. Meanwhile, coarsely chop the pistachios and toss them with a pinch or two of cardamom.
To serve, spoon a few warm apricots into each bowl, and a little of the syrup, too. Top with a scant fistful of nuts. I bet a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a pour of cold sweet cream would be grand, but they don’t need it. I store the baked apricots in a jar in the fridge. I love to eat them chilled over yogurt in the morning, or any time of day.
Serves 2-3.