Whether you grow your own or find a great deal at your local farmers’ market, a box full of apricots is the smell of summer! Often ripe in the first month of the warm summer season, apricots herald preserving, jam making, drying and often over-indulging in this delightful summer seasonal beauty.
The season for apricots in my part of the world is relatively short so when it comes it comes, it comes in a flurry – with a glut of fruit that needs using up or preserving in some way for winter enjoyment.
The smell of apricots soon fills my kitchen and I am poring over old recipes, new recipes, asking friends for recipes and turning the heat up.
This year I managed to find a box of 10kg of apricots at a great price – around 30% of the retail price so it was definitely worth purchasing and preserving.
I used it in a number of ways – both fresh and preserved. Rather than instantly move to canning them to preserve them I got a little bit more creative.
Here’s my top 5 ways to utilise the produce of the season when it comes to apricots.
A lot of these methods can be used to for other stone fruit too so don’t limit yourself to apricots, if you have an abundance of other fruits.
Peaches and nectarines can also be treated in much the same ways as listed below and enjoyed all year round too.
Dry Them
If you don’t have an electric dehydrator, it is a worthwhile investment. Even a small one with five or six trays will help you preserve your produce for cooler days. There are a lot of dehydrators on the market and some of the features are just a personal preference. I have always had a round dehydrator, but there are also square ones available at very reasonable prices. It might come down to where you want to keep it while you are dehydrating and what bench space you have available.
If you are off-grid, then you might consider a solar dehydrator. There are plenty of plans around for building one – ours is still on the to-do list, so in the meantime I use the electric dehydrator.
One of the biggest advantages of having your own dehydrator is that you can dry your fruit without any additives, no sulphur, no sugar, just fruit.
From my 10kg of apricots, I dehydrated four round trays of apricots which was around 2kgs of fruit.
Make Jam
While making jam might bring visions to you of standing over a hot stove for hours on end, stirring huge pots of bubbling fruit, it doesn’t have to be that way. I make my jam in small batches in my Thermomix. I use a fairly straightforward recipe and cut down the sugar.
I don’t use pectin, instead I use a granny smith apple, which does the same job of helping the jam to thicken. Because I generally have fresh apples on hand, it means I can make jam as and when I need to without having to rush into town to buy pectin in a plastic packet.
By making jam in small batches, I can fill a 500gm jar with one batch, and it takes around 5 minutes of my time and around 30 minutes of total preparation and cooking time. And of course, using the Thermie means I can go off and do something else, like potter in the garden or get started on another preservation technique while the machine is doing all the stirring over heat thing.
Traditionally at least in Australia, apricots come into season in the heat of summer, so standing over a hot stove stirring hot jam doesn’t really sound that appealing. Letting the machine do all the stirring while I go and do something else is a much cooler way to get the job done!
Small batch jam making also means I can squeeze in a batch between other tasks. If I don’t have all day to stand and stir jam, it doesn’t matter – I can simply start a batch each morning while I’m eating breakfast and it is done long before the day is truly underway.
Why not try small batch jam yourself? While this recipe uses apricots, you can equally use strawberries, nectarines or other stone fruit or berries.
I used around 1kg of my apricots to make jam.
Make Chutney
This year I made a few jars of chutney from my box of apricots and I’ve never made apricot chutney before. I am sure it will be a delicious accompaniment to a lovely slow cooked beef curry in winter so I have stacked these away on the shelves for cooler times.
Chutney is generally very forgiving. You can use whatever ingredients you have on hand, as long as you include some sugar and vinegar (I used this Apple Cider Vinegar) you will obtain the preservation effects. Add onion, black peppercorns, dried chillis and spices to create a unique flavour.
For 750gm of apricots, I used 2 large onions, 2 cups of brown sugar and 500ml brown vinegar. I threw in some tomato puree, garlic and chillies as well as black whole peppercorns. Chopped my ingredients finely and stirred until the sugar dissolved. I then let it simmer and thicken for around an hour. This recipe could easily be adapted to the Thermomix if you have one and you could most likely do it in smaller batches – something for my test kitchen next year!
I used around 1.5kg of my apricots to make chutney.
Make a Seasonal Cake
A cake which uses seasonal fruit as the hero really helps hail in the season! I used my favourite, easy gluten free recipe and instead of just a plain cake, I halved around 10 apricots, rolled them in brown sugar and placed them open side down in a spring form cake tin, like this one.
Once the apricots were in place I added the cake mix to the tin and cooked it as per the normal recipe.
Once the cake was cooked, I tipped it out, so the bottom became the top and it looked delicious! The brown sugar had caramalised on the apricots and drizzled down the cake once it was turned out.
Oh, and it is delicious with a dollop of local jersey cream on top when served!
If you prefer a standard wheat flour cake, then instead of a gluten free recipe, just use your favourite plain vanilla cake recipe and add the apricots to the bottom of the pan in the same way.
If you prefer things a little sweeter, sprinkle the warm cake with icing sugar to finish it off.
Eat them fresh!
There is nothing better at the start of summer, than a perfectly ripe apricot or two straight from the tree or the fridge after lunch, or as a mid-afternoon snack.
If you’re not a fridge -snacker, then preparing them for a dessert served with fresh cream or cold home-made ice-cream or sorbet can be a delightful way to finish off a meal.
Try half dipping half an apricot into melted dark chocolate for a special occasion.
Nutritional Value
Not only are they delicious, but they are a great source of beta carotene (that thing that carrots are famous for!), high in vitamin A, C and E and have been shown to protect against diabetes and heart disease (probably not if you roll them in sugar though!). Being high in fibre means you do have to show some self-control otherwise you may end up with more than you bargained for…
They are high in antioxidants, calcium, contain iron, are good for your skin and according to some, can slow the ageing process. What’s not to love!
What is your favourite way to use up a box of seasonal fruit?
