Kit hates apricots. I love apricots. Kit hates white chocolate, so do Isaac and Leah. I like white chocolate. Ryan and Leah hate fudge type slices. I love fudge type slices. This easy, no bake slice has all of those features. Chunks of white chocolate dotted through a fudge slice and scattered with clumps of sunny apricot pieces and green pepitas for crunch.

I figured that in making this I might actually get to eat most of it myself and have some to offer to people that happened to call in. Well, it turns out that despite having features that everyone in my house finds completely abhorrent except for me - this slice is absolutely delicious and everyone likes it. They’re all eating it!

My secret plan of actually getting to consume more than one or two pieces of it failed utterly. The rather large container filled to the brim with this moreish creation seems to be emptying at the usual rate, that’s because this is very, very, good.

Don’t let the simple list of ingredients fool you, there is something about this combination that just works.

White Chocolate, Pepita & Apricot Slice

Line a 24cm slice pan with baking paper and set aside.

• 250 grams of butter
• 175 grams of brown sugar
• 375 grams of sweetened condensed milk
• 500 grams plain cookies - crushed (I used one plain package and one malt flavoured)
• 2 cups of roughly chopped dried apricots
• 1 cup of green pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
• 200 grams of  chopped white chocolate plus extra for drizzling

In a large saucepan place the brown sugar, condensed milk and butter. Heat gently stirring continuously until thick like caramel sauce - remove from the heat.

Add in the crushed cookies, chopped apricots and pepitas, mix well. Cool slightly and add in the chopped white chocolate and mix again.

Press into your lined pan and refrigerate for one hour.

Cut into slices and drizzled with a little melted white chocolate if desired.

Store in an airtight container.

Do cut this after roughly an hour, it does not need to be stored in the fridge after it’s cooled. If you keep it in the fridge for longer than an hour before cutting it will be a little too hard to cut.

Also don’t count on getting more than a couple of slices for yourself if you live with other people!

That is an Apricot Tart with Honey and Almonds; for those of you that do not speak french - like me. This is a long standing recipe in our house; one that I just love. I don’t make it all that often, not because there is anything wrong with the recipe, but because I like to wait for apricots to be at their best, fat and ripe and in season. You can make this with canned apricots,which are a good substitute, just not quite the same as fresh.

I know most places in the northern hemisphere will not have apricots just yet, but perhaps you can tuck this away for the longer sunny days when the apricots are juicy and ready to be picked. It’s not far away now for you, even though I know many of you are still in your winter woollens and have snowy views out your windows.

It does take a little time to make this tart, but it’s absolutely worth every minute spent on it. A creamy almond crème patisserie filling dimpled with plump apricots in a crisp light pastry. What more could you want on a summer day?

Before I give you the recipe - just a reminder about the Giveaway, I’m really enjoying seeing the comments and suggestions for a recipe - I really don’t mind how creative you are with your suggestions - test my cooking skills and be adventurous!

Apricot Tart with Honey and Almonds

Pastry cream

• 2/3 cup of whole milk
• 1- 2 inch piece of vanilla bean
• 2 large egg yolks
• 3 Tbspns sugar
• 1 Tblspn of cornflour/cornstarch

One quantity of sweet shortcrust pastry -see pastry recipe here

Filling ingredients

• 1/2 cup of whole blanched almonds
• 1/3 cup of icing sugar
• 1/4 cup of butter - room temperature
• 1 large egg
• 1 tspn almond extract
• pinch of salt
• 6 to 8 apricots halved and stones removed

• 3 Tblspns of honey - to drizzle over

Pour milk into a small saucepan, scrape in the seeds from the vanilla bean and toss in the bean as well. Bring up to a simmer. Remove from the heat.

In a small bowl whisk together the egg yolks, 3 Tblspns of sugar and the cornflour. Gradually add the hot milk to the yolk mixture in a small and steady stream whisking continuously.

Add the mixture back into the saucepan and heat gently until it thickens.

It should look something like this.

Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap pressed directly on the surface and cool in the fridge.

Roll out your pastry to fit your tart tin chill until firm, I often toss mine in the freezer for about 20 minutes to speed things up.

Preheat the oven to 220C/400F bake your tart crust blind until golden.

For those of you unfamiliar with this term, it just means to place some baking paper on top of your pastry and fill it with beans or pie weights and bake for roughly 10 minutes. Remove the paper and beans and bake for another 5. This is just to ensure that the pastry is crisp and does not absorb the tart filling when you pour it in. It’s a really common method to use when you are baking a tart that has a wet filling.

Cool your pastry crust.

Preheat oven to 180C/350F

Finely grind your almonds and icing sugar in the food processor.

Add this into your cooled pastry cream, stir in your room temperature butter and the egg, extract and salt.

Pour into your cooled crust and arrange your apricots halves on the top

Bake until set and golden- this takes roughly 40 minutes. You might find you need to tent the edges of the crust with foil if they are looking a little brown.

Drizzle with honey while warm, serve at room temperature.

This is a really lovely tart and one that looks so pretty. If you are using canned apricots do drain them well, you do not want a lot of additional moisture from the apricots going into the filling.

I can imagine this working well with peaches,pears or plums as well.

We are getting into late summer here. Sunsets are earlier and the winter clothing stocks are coming into the shops and they are finished with the end of summer sales. I’m starting to keep my eyes open for mushrooms in the forests that are near our house and Isaac is making the most of his waterslide while he still can.

That means apricot season is almost over here, and I’ll put my apricot tart recipe away until next summer when the stone fruit is hanging on the trees and the apricots are ripe again.

Look at this! It’s dried apricots poached in honey, vanilla and white wine for the ..

hang on.. I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.

I found a little book in my stack of cookbooks in the pantry. Good and Tried recipes from 1927. It’s missing its cover unfortunately. I’ve amassed quite a collection of old cookbooks over the years, some I have cooked and baked from, some I’ve just browsed through. They are not only a collection of recipes, but a historical record of a time long gone and foods and techniques no longer used.

As times get a little tougher and people realise that there are skills being lost, vegetable gardens and chickens are being seen in backyards again and old recipe books being saved and leafed through for recipes from more frugal times. I thought I would give you a small sampling from its very worn pages.

I happened to open the book to the recipe below first. I am not entirely sure that I would want to cook this particular recipe. I think they mean Pukeko (which is a bird) not Pukaki which is a lake named after a Maori Chief. However a Pukeko is way too cute and they’re a protected native species.

Still, I suspect it must have been tasty, since it made it’s way into a recipe book.

The book also contains all manner of remedies for invalids and first aid, as well as the expected formulas for things like floor polish and how to remove mildew from curtains and suitable meals for the nursery. There is an index in the front, not for the recipes, but for the advertisements! Now here - is something that you all need to know and remember.

There will be no need now for any complaining about sprains as long as you remember this, and next time you cannot sleep, try the remedy above. Who needs new fangled medicines!

Oh, and before you cook the recipe I am about to give you, perhaps nip on down to the local store and pick yourself up a new corset. I’m sure you would like to be presentable for your husband or possible gentleman callers.

This is what I decided to make from the book, an Apricot Queen pudding. I decided to stick with Mrs Winters recipe for Apricot Queen Pudding more or less and see what it turned out like. I have a more modern version of this dessert, but honestly, this one sounds better!

There is of course no oven temperature given, since most women were still using coal ranges. There are many references to a “brisk fire” or “slow fire” throughout the book.

Apricot Queen Pudding - Mrs Winter- 1927

So - as per instructions I stewed (poached) the dried apricots first, almost covering them with water, Taking the liberty of tossing in

• one split vanilla bean
• 1/4 cup of white wine
• and 2 Tbspns of honey

I noticed nearly all the recipes called for a vanilla bean rather than extract, which I thought was interesting, extract must not have quite been in fashion yet?

They plumped up nicely. Then I ate one, and then I ate another one…

Then I made the base, rather than beating the bread down with a fork- which all sounded a little violent to me. I beat it with a whisk, since this seemed to make a little more sense, then I added the yolks and whisked lightly.

Put it into the oven at roughly 180C (350F) for about 30 minutes.

Then I poured the warm fruit on to the cooked custard base.

Next, top the pudding with the meringue. The meringue was very stiff and I had to beat it for some time to ensure the sugar was all incorporated. I’m not sure that it was still really well mixed in even after all the beating: if I was making this again (which I most likely will), I would reduce the sugar in the meringue considerably.

Spread the meringue on it carefully in spoonfuls then put it back into the oven again, this time at a slightly lower temperature - at roughly 160C for about 15 minutes.

This was the result.

A soft bread custard, with chunks of hot vanilla and honey tasting apricots covered in a soft meringue.

Thank you Mrs Winter from 1927, a lovely recipe, very simple, adaptable to many different kinds of fruit, and a delightful end to a meal