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Go figure!

For this week’s edition of Magazine Mondays, I’m featuring a recipe that I came this close to dumping in the food waste bin.

When I bought the 2007 April/May issue of Taste Italia, I immediately bookmarked a recipe for Apricot Almond Shortbread (Frollino di albicocca e mandorla).

For starters, the title is slightly misleading. This dessert is a cross between a cake and a pie of sorts. While the photo was very enticing, I disliked the recipe almost as soon as I started making it. To begin with, there are a lot of steps and I found the directions a bit confusing.

The worst part of the recipe for me was the topping, which was disastrous. The topping is a meringue of sorts that you spread on the dessert after baking it a for a bit. You then put it back in the oven to bake the topping. My topping spread all over the place and it just came out of the oven looking like a disaster.

After letting it cool, I took a long look at my creation and thought, “There is no way I can serve this to anyone.” I almost threw it out but then remembered that there were quite a bit of almonds, egg whites and fresh apricots in there and tossing it didn’t seem very cost-effective.

So I let it cook completely, did some damage control to the topping and filled in the top with apricot jam.

Feeling somewhat better, I brought the dessert into work on the same day that I brought in the Peach and Almond Tart from a few weeks ago. I expected everyone to like the peach tart much better but in one of those strange twists, it seemed most people actually preferred the apricot dessert.

Go figure!

To be honest, I don’t think I’ll ever be making this one again, but it just goes to show, you never really do know how a dessert may turn out.

Have a great week everyone!

Ciao!

Note: Click here for the recipe for the Apricot Almond Shortbread. This week, I’m joined in my Magazine Mondays post by Oakley Rhodes of the blog Lemonbasil with her gorgeous White Chocolate Panna Cotta with Dark Chocolate Sauce.