Apricot Bars

Why in the world would anyone want a strawberry shortcake maker?!

Do you make strawberry shortcake on a daily or weekly—or even MONTHLY basis? When you think of specialty makers/irons, you usually think of the ones used for quesadillas or waffles. You know, normal foods that people generally make frequently. But a strawberry shortcake maker?!

That was one of the MANY interesting items le fiancé and I found while perusing the Norman Market. Every Saturday, the city of Norman holds a combo flea/farmers market at the Cleveland County fairgrounds. I had never been before, but Rob had. I only had $5 in cash on me and we only had about 20 minutes to spare wandering through the indoor-outdoor market, but we found so many cool things!

I bought 2 pounds of yellow/crookneck squash to make squash patties with tomorrow evening. I also bought a couple of yellow onions. And just like that, boom! $5 gone.

Rob has been going through an antique/thrift store/flea market drought, so he came away empty handed. However, he bought me these cutie mushroom salt and pepper shakers for $3! What a steal.

After checking out the market, we had to run a few errands—including grocery shopping. I love grocery shopping, but Rob….not so much. I needed to get some veggies and a roast (to make that Mississippi roast you see all over Facebook) and a pork tenderloin, but other than that, the grocery shopping was limited to the staples: milk, eggs, and butter.

I wanted to make a dessert this weekend with the ingredients I already had at the house instead of buying ingredients at the store. I had totally forgotten that I had an entire unopened jar of apricot preserves in the back of my pantry, so I sifted through some cookbooks until I settled upon a dessert: Apricot bars.

This recipe comes from a Baylor County, Texas centennial cookbook. The cookbook includes recipes that span all 100 years, and I think this one was on the older side. The ingredients are really simple, and I would like to think that early Texas pioneers would make this easy dessert during the winter to use up some of their summer jams and preserve reserves (see what I did there?!).

It’s crunchy on the outside and ooey-gooey on the inside, and pleasantly sweet. This is a fantastic dessert recipe to use up any pantry staples you might have, and I’d be willing to bet that this recipe would work with other kinds of jams and preserves!

Apricot Bars

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 1/2 cups quick oats
• 3/4 cup Crisco shortening
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup apricot preserves

1. In a medium sized bowl, sift flour, salt and baking powder together. Add the oats.
2. In another large bowl, cream together Crisco and brown sugar until a creamy consistency is reached and everything is well combined.
3. Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and mix until crumbly.
4. Press 2/3 crumb mixture into the bottom of an 11×7″ or 13×9″ baking dish. Spread with apricot preserves (it’s okay if some of the mixture comes up and into the apricot preserves).
5. Top with remaining 1/3 of the crumb mixture. Bake at 375 degrees for 35 minutes. Let cool in the pan and then cut into bars.

See how simple that recipe is?! And only seven ingredients, too! All of those ingredients are bound to be in your kitchen right now. I can’t wait to file this away into a compartment of my brain under, “Quick dessert to make when I don’t have anything”.

Also, I’ve been on a stone fruit craze lately. Although I would have liked to use fresh apricots for these bars, the apricot preserves were pretty tasty. I’m sure I’ll try this recipe with strawberry and peach preserves one of these days. What type of jam would you like to try in these bars?