Brady Evans is a cook who specializes in stretching cooking…
Brady Evans lets her husband source some of the ingredients for these homemade Apricot Shortbread Cookies.
By Brady Evans
My husband has one of those metabolisms that runs at lightspeed. That, along with our owning a horse farm and the associated farmer activities, allows him to eat pretty much any amount of anything he pleases without gaining a pound.
Lately, he’s been eating his way down the local grocery store’s cookie aisle. Finally, I decided enough was enough, and that I could make him cookies for cheaper than he could buy them. We held hands as we walked throughout the grocery store for inspiration for the cookie recipe he desired.
His feet stopped moving in front of the dried fruit. When he chose the organic, dried, preservative free apricots as the add-in for his cookies, I realized that we would NOT be saving money in this adventure. But we’d be gaining fewer oddball shelf-life preserving ingredients. So we snagged the container of dried apricots and headed home with a pound of butter to make the cookies.
I adapted a roll-and-cut recipe to make slice and bake cookies so that my husband could bake off cookies at a moment’s notice. He adored this recipe and hasn’t been seen in the cookie aisle at the grocery store since.
PrintApricot Shortbread Cookies
5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star
5 from 2 reviews
- Author: adaptd from Martha Stewart
- Total Time: 16 minutes
- Yield: 12 1x
Description
Tender crumbed shortbread cookies studded with small apricot pieces
Ingredients
- 1 cup (2 sticks, 226 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 3/4 cup (180 mL) sifted confectioners’ sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups (475 mL) sifted all-purpose flour, plus more for parchment
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (120 mL) finely chopped dried apricots
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees, with rack in center.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Place butter, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, flour, and salt in large mixing bowl.
- Stir well with a wooden spoon until mixture is combined but not too creamy.
- Stir in dried apricots.
- Turn out dough onto a piece of plastic wrap and mold into a log, 2″ in diameter.
- Refrigerate 1 hour.
- Slice cookies to 1/4″ thickness and bake 13-15 minutes or until done, allowing cookies to cool before enjoying.
- Prep Time: 1 min
- Cook Time: 15 mins
Brady Evans is a cook who specializes in stretching cooking boundaries towards a more healthy lifestyle. She loves making recipes with unexpected ingredients and share her passion for cooking through her very successful and mostly-vegetarian blog, Branny Boils Over.
How many cookies you yield?
about 24 cookies
Brady, it was an absolute delight making and eating these cookies :) Thanks for a wonderfully easy recipe and thanks for giving me my much awaited success with baking shortbreads!
You can see my post here @ http://whatdoimake.blogspot.com/2011/09/apricot-shortbread-cookies.html
The cookies turned out great. I got 30 out of the roll and I did measure the 1/4″ thickness for the slices. 15 minutes was the perfect time to bake them in my oven. They have a great shortbread texture and flavor, with the apricots adding a tart yet sweet flavor and a different texture. The recipe will go in the recipe box!
These have become a favorite in my family and with customers!! Trying a new spin on them with almond flour!! Can’t wait to bake them in the morning!!
from 2011 til 2016 .. we’re still leaving comments… ahahaha.. pretty funny. But.. just wanted to say thanks for this….
Veronica
I have no idea what I did wrong. My mixture wasn’ t even close to a dough. It was just crumbled. I worked hard to form a log out of it.
Just took it out of the refrigerator and slice as it just fell into crumble.
I dumped it all on the cookie sheet and will eat it with a spoon.
It is just so dry.
I’m guessing maybe your butter wasn’t softened all the way! Or possibly a mis-measurement somewhere. Cheers!