Apricot Crumble Tart

Two pounds of fresh apricots in a tart to start, what an amazing mound of summer fruits for a dessert? I’m keen to buy up bags upon bags of apricots when they are in season. I have a few winning and crowd pleasing recipes that I’ve never tired of making. Recently, I’ve also found a way to preserve apricots so that I can extent the seasonal offering a while longer. Yes, I love apricot desserts of all kinds. I was excited to bake an apricot tart along with the Cook-the-book-Fridays group.

I made the apricot crumble tart and the apricot kernel ice cream from David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen. He wrote: “I do take the time to treat the apricots right, rolling out a tart shell that I make with pure butter, packing them into the filling, and topping it all with a crunchy topping of nuts and a dusting of cinnamon.”

That closely describes the tart recipe in general. Except, when I got to actually making the dough, it required pressing the dough over the bottom of the springform pan, and a little less than halfway up the sides. Haven’t done that for quite a while! That tripped me up a little. It was easy said than done. It took some chilling and waiting and pressing to get a decent looking shell. Maybe I was overzealous with the pressing. The end result was less desirable than I’d have liked. The bottom of the tart was soggy and the side was too thick to break with a fork.

The best part of the tart was the apricot filling. It was sweet and tart and delicious. I may have messed up the crumble topping by, again, overworking it a little too long. It was not as light and crunchy as I’d expected.

apricot tart topped with apricot kernel ice cream

I made the kernel ice cream. Since I don’t have a ice cream machine, I made it following the no-churn method by whipping together heavy cream and condensed milk in roughly a two-to-one ratio. Added the apricot kernels and vanilla extract and then put the mixture in the freezer for a few hours to set. The ice cream was creamy and nutty. One problem: my husband absolutely refused to eat it. He does not think it is safe to eat certain kinds of apricot kernels. I think he does know a thing or two in this field. David Lebovitz did warn us not to consume the kernels in high quantities. According to WebMD:

Apricot kernel contains a toxic chemical known as amygdalin. In the body this chemical is converted to cyanide, which is poisonous. There was interest in using apricot kernel to fight cancer because it was thought that amygdalin was taken up first by cancer cells and converted to cyanide. It was hoped that the cyanide would harm only the tumor. But research has shown that this is not true. The amygdalin is actually converted to cyanide in the stomach. The cyanide then goes throughout the body, where it can cause serious harm, including death.

It’s a little disconcerting, given my recent episodes of food poisoning. Is my husband the only one with his refusal?