Dried Apricot Pie  

Francisco Martinez Montino, 1611, The Art of Cooking, Pie Making, Pastry Making, and Preserving

Dried Apricot Pie

Take a pound of dried apricots and soak them overnight. Then bring them to a boil and have reserved a pound of clarified sugar and put the dried apricots in it so that they are slowly preserved. Then remove them and let them cool. Next, make your crust, adding in a little rosewater, a little orange blossom water, and a tiny bit of cinnamon. Once the crust is cooked, try to reserve a little simple syrup to brush on top. The dough for this pie should be made very thin with a little sugar. Place two or three layers on the bottom and a couple on top, so that it looks like a puff pastry pie. Note that if the dried apricots are well soaked it is not necessary to first boil them. They should soak in watered down wine.

Soak 12 oz of apricots in watered wine overnight.

Add 12 oz of sugar and simmer gently. Let cool. Do Not Add the Wine from Soaking

Make standard crust*, adding a little rosewater, orange flower water and very little cinnamon.

Line the pie pan with two or three very thin layers of crust.

Fill with the apricots.

Top with two very thin layers of crust

Bake

Brush top with syrup

*Take 12 oz of finely sifted wheat flour and put it on the pastry board. Make a round well and put in it 6 oz of sifted, ground sugar, 3 oz of lard, eight eggs –two with the whites and six without – a little wine, and a little salt. Knead it until it is smooth] Page 311

¼ cup wine is too much. Try Tb’s next time. Added 1 c flour plus flour for rolling out. Makes approx. 8 rounds of pie dough