making life baking life: apricot bread

Ingredients:

1 c snipped dried apricots
1 c sugar
3 T butter, softened
1 egg
1 c orange juice
2 c all-purpose flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1 t salt

Directions:

Snip dried apricots into slices (this is the fun part!).


Soak in warm water for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, cream sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl. Add egg and beat (or stir really, really fast, if you are beater-free, like me).

Stir in orange juice (note that this juice has no pulp--I'm pretty sure pulpy orange juice would be a pretty unfortunate choice).

Stir in flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. (In my haste, I accidentally used salted butter. Do not panic if this happens to you. I just sprinkled a tiny bit of salt [instead of a full teaspoon] over the mixture and called it good--better too little than too much, in my opinion.)

Stir.

Marvel at creamy peaks of batter.

Drain apricots thoroughly and mix into the batter.

Bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes until golden brown. I like mine cool, so I wrap it in tinfoil and refrigerate.

And then I enjoy a slice with my cinnamon-brewed coffee and best-eggs-ever breakfast the next morning (eggs courtesy of K, and seriously? Best. Eggs. Ever.)

I originally made a loaf of this bread as a Christmas present for my dad, whose sister was unable to make said bread this year as she always does (yeah, yeah, I know it rather resembles the dreaded fruitcake, but he asked for it!). I refused to have any of the gift-loaf, but I had plenty of leftover apricots to make my very own--and it was tasty!