Apricot Bars

This recipe is from a guy at work's mom.  He's my age and when he started at the company he was living at home.  In our office, people typically bring treats for their birthday and holidays. The guy brought these in and they were so good that I asked him for the recipe and he actually told me it was a family secret. Lol....but when I brought a chex-mix during the holidays, he told me that he'd give me the recipe if I gave him mine, so we did a swap.

I'm surprised how simple they were to make. Also,  you could easily use a fruit flavor other than apricot is that isn't your cup of tea.

Apricot Bars

Ingredients:
(24+ servings)

• 2 cups butter, unsalted and softened
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 4 cups flour
• 1 cup chopped pecans (optional, but it's best with them)
• 1 ~10oz can of apricot filling
• ~1/4 cup powder sugar
• 11x15 jelly roll pan (however, I used a plain pyrex glass baking dish without any issues)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
• In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar
• Mix in egg yolks; one at a time
• Add flour and pecans; mix (dough will be pretty crumbly)



• Grease pan with butter wrapper
• Split your "dough" in half; spread half of the dough on the bottom of the pan
• Spread apricot filling on top of dough
• Using a small spoon; drop the rest of the dough on top of the apricot.  (Smoothing will take place during baking)
• Bake for 18-20 minutes



• Sprinkle with powdered sugar before eating
• Enjoy!



Also, note, you can easily cut this recipe in half to make a smaller serving.  This is what I did.  I originally planned on using a ~6x8 pan but still had so much dough that I made a second pan (using a bread pan).  For the second pan I used grape jelly instead of apricot, knowing how picky Ben is.

The funny this is that when I asked him how he liked the bars, his response was: "The blueberry is a lot better than the peach"....well, darling, considering you got both flavors wrong, I'm not sure that I should be concerned about your critique.