Simple yet Elegant Babylonian Apricot Jewels

Mirj's Note:

Created for RSC #6. Okay, I have a confession to make here. This recipe is not entirely my own original creation. I was discussing the contest over the phone with Sushiman, and being a fairly decent cook himself (okay, an amazing cook), he started coming up with a recipe on his own. With a little tweaking by yours truly, I think we have come up with something wonderful together.... This can be cute little finger food to serve at a party, or part of a dessert plate. As an appetizer, leave out the powdered sugar. If serving as a dessert, bring it on!

• Total Time: 10 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 0 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 16

• 32 dried apricots
• 4 ounces finely ground cashews
• 2 ounces raisins
• ¼ cup white wine
• 1 lemon, zest of
• 8 ounces cream cheese
• ½ cup powdered sugar (optional)
• powdered sugar (for dredging)

Directions:

1. Mix the cashews, raisins, white wine, lemon zest and cream cheese and powdered sugar until it forms a paste.
2. You can do this in the food processor to really mix everything together.
3. Take one apricot, and spread some of the cheese on it, nice and thick.
4. Cover with a second apricot.
5. Do this to make a total of 16 "sandwiches".
6. Sprinkle or roll in powdered sugar.

Reviews

[Mme M]

This is a fabulous recipe. If you don't want to stuff apricots, use this as a cake filling, it is very, very good. I used Monbazillac sweet white wine...next time I may use a creamy liquer, or Cointreau. Also, for part of the recipe, I used dried strawberries, and this was really, really good!

[Trisha W]

My family found this to be a very interesting dish! The filling smelled wonderful while I was blending it. It made much more filling than I used last night. My package of apricots only made 12 sandwiches. So I bought some more apricots today so we can finish it off. I used Mediterrean apricots yesterday (because of the name), but today used CA grown - mmm... even better. The filling was also chilled today - and I think that was better also.