A recipe I created for Fine Cooking magazine’s Make It Tonight column—recipes you can make in 30 minutes or less
A great way to enjoy stone fruit season, this dessert is simultaneously elegant and playful. (Click here for tips for buying and using apricots.)
Serves 6
- 1 pound ripe apricots, pitted and cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons water
- 1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
- 1/8 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
- About 1 1/2 pints vanilla ice cream
- One 750-mL bottle sweet sparkling wine (for example, Asti Spumante), chilled
In a medium saucepan, combine the apricots, sugar, lemon juice, water, vanilla bean (seeds and pod), and salt. Bring to a boil over medium-high, stirring to dissolve the sugar and salt. Reduce to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the apricots are very tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Set aside to cool to room temperature or, if you’re serving the dessert soon and need to cool the mixture quickly, put the saucepan in an ice bath for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Remove the vanilla pod (save it for another use if you like) and use a potato masher to mash the mixture into a jam-like consistency.
Arrange about half of the ice cream in serving glasses. Top with about half of the apricot sauce. Repeat another layer of ice cream and sauce, then top with the sparkling wine. Serve immediately, with spoons and straws.
