Apricot lekvar thick enough to sit in a linzer window and stay there.
Dried and fresh apricots cooked together into a dense orange paste, about 1:4 sugar to fruit, with no boxed pectin. Made for linzer cookies, rugelach and the glaze on a sponge. Inquiry only, pickup or local delivery.
No pectin from a box. Apricots and quince bring their own.
Half the fruit goes in dried. That is the whole trick.
Fresh apricots are mostly water and they are only good for a few weeks a year. Cook a pan of them alone and you spend all day boiling off liquid, and what is left tastes flat. So the batch starts with unsulphured dried apricots soaked overnight in their own water, then fresh fruit on top for the perfume and the acidity.
Dried apricots carry a lot of natural pectin and almost no free water. The pan reaches a firm set in about five hours instead of the nine plum lekvar needs, and the flavour stays sharp instead of cooking down into caramel. Sugar is roughly one part to four parts fruit, by weight, same as the rest of the pantry.
It finishes a deep orange that goes almost rust at the edge of the pan. If a batch comes out pale, it was not cooked far enough and it will weep in a cookie. That batch does not get jarred.
What we will not put in it
No commercial pectin, no modified starch, no apricot kernel flavouring, no yellow colouring. The one thing we do add is lemon juice, about a tablespoon per large pan, because apricots lose their edge when they are cooked long.
- Fruit
- Unsulphured dried apricots soaked overnight, plus fresh apricots
- Sugar : fruit
- About 1:4 by weight. 1:6 reduced-sugar batch, +$1 per 8 oz
- Cook
- About 5 hours in wide pans
- Set
- Dense paste, cuts with a knife when cold
- Added pectin
- None. Apricots carry their own
- Acidity
- Lemon juice, about a tablespoon per pan
- Sizes
- 8 oz jar, 16 oz jar, 2 lb tub, 5 lb pail
- Handover
- Pickup in Austin, or local delivery $8 flat per order
Where apricot lekvar beats a jam.
Anywhere the filling has to be visible and stay put. A loose jam bleeds into the dough, browns at the edge and leaves a wet ring around the cut-out.
Linzer cookies
Half a teaspoon in the centre of the base, top pressed on. It does not squeeze out of the sides and the powdered sugar on top stays white instead of dissolving into a wet patch. An 8 oz jar does about 40 sandwiches.
Rugelach
Spread thin on the rolled dough with walnuts, then rolled up. Because it is a paste rather than a syrup it does not run out the ends of the crescents and weld them to the tray.
Cake glaze
Warm two tablespoons with a teaspoon of water until it is brushable and paint it on a warm sponge before the icing. That is the classic apricot layer under a Sachertorte, and it keeps crumbs out of the chocolate.
With cheese and roast chicken
Sharper than it is sweet, so it holds up next to a salty cheese or a roast bird. Thin a spoon with a little vinegar and it becomes a glaze for chicken thighs in the last ten minutes.
What a jar, a tub and a pail come to.
The 8 oz jar sets the base at $12. Larger containers are a multiple of it. Quantity breaks apply to the whole order, mixed products included.
An estimate, not a quote. We confirm the price by phone or email before anything is made. Six units or more takes 8% off, 24 or more 14%, 72 or more 20%. Austin delivery is a flat $8 per order, shown separately.
The questions that come up most.
Including the people we would send elsewhere.
Is it sweeter or sharper than the plum?
Sharper. Plum lekvar reads dark and almost savoury; apricot reads bright and sour at the finish. If you are filling cookies for people who do not like sweet things, this is the jar.
Does it bake as well as the plum lekvar?
Yes, at 375°F it holds the same way, and bakeries buy it in tubs for the same reason. It browns a little faster than plum because of the lighter colour, so watch the last two minutes on an open-faced pastry.
Are the apricots from Texas?
No. Texas is not apricot country. The fresh fruit comes in through produce suppliers in season, and the dried apricots are unsulphured and bought by the case. The peach preserves are the local-fruit jar.
Who should skip this one?
Anyone wanting a spoonable breakfast apricot jam with pieces of fruit in it. This is a paste. Try the peach preserves or the pear cardamom butter instead. We also do not ship outside Texas.
Send an inquiry. One of us answers it.
Sizes, counts and a date. We reply with what is on the shelf and the confirmed price.
68 Oak Lane, Office 12Austin, Texas 86853