Spanish baked apricot dessert with honey and rosemary Recipe
This dessert combines the sweetness of baked apricots with a light herbal note of rosemary and honey. In Spain, similar simple baked fruit desserts often appear in summer, when fruit is at its cheapest and most flavorful. It’s something between a compote and a cake – without the cake, but with all of its pleasant, warm part.
A very simple dessert that turns inexpensive seasonal fruit into something elegant and aromatic. Baking concentrates the flavor of the apricots, and the combination of honey, lemon and rosemary gives them a Mediterranean character without much effort.
Chef's tips
Choose apricots that are ripe but still firm, so they keep their shape in the oven. Taste the fruit before baking and adjust the amount of honey to their sweetness. Don’t skip toasting the almonds – this small step adds a lot of flavor and texture.
How to serve
Serve the apricots warm, with cold yogurt or ice cream for a contrast of temperatures. They also taste good at room temperature, for example as a simple dessert after a light summer lunch. You can spoon the fruit and sauce over plain sponge cake or natural skyr for a more filling dessert.
Ingredients
- apricots ripe but firm, halved and pitted - 600 g
- honey runny, e.g. multifloral - 3 tablespoons
- fresh rosemary leaves stripped from the stalk and finely chopped - 1 sprig
- lemon juice freshly squeezed - 1 tablespoon
- butter cut into small pieces - 20 g
- flaked almonds for sprinkling - 3 tablespoons
- thick plain yogurt or vanilla ice cream for serving, optional - 200 g
Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 190°C (top and bottom heat). Wash the apricots, cut them in half and remove the stones.
- Arrange the apricot halves cut side up in a single layer in an ovenproof dish.
- In a small bowl, mix the honey with the lemon juice and chopped rosemary. Taste and, if needed, add a little more honey if the fruit is very tart.
- Pour the prepared mixture over the apricots, making sure some of the sauce gets into the center of each half. Scatter the small pieces of butter on top.
- Place the dish in the oven and bake for 15–20 minutes, until the apricots soften, the edges wrinkle slightly, and the sauce starts to bubble gently.
- In a dry frying pan, toast the flaked almonds for 2–3 minutes over medium heat, stirring often, until they are lightly golden and smell nutty. Immediately transfer them to a plate so they don’t burn.
- Serve the apricots warm, drizzled with the sauce from the bottom of the dish and sprinkled with the toasted almonds. You can add a spoonful of plain yogurt or a scoop of vanilla ice cream to each serving.
Storage
No storage information available for this dish.
This dessert is inspired by simple Spanish ways of using seasonal fruit – nothing goes to waste, and a tray of baked apricots can feed several people with almost no work. I like to prepare it when I find a crate of slightly soft apricots at the market: the oven and honey bring out their best.
