She had done some cleaning in her pantry a day or two before, and discovered a large unopened bag of dried apricots and a large supply of pecans, so she decided some experimenting was in order. Apricots and pecans should go together fairly well, she told herself. So she grabbed a handful of pecans and tossed them in the oven to toast, and chopped up a couple of cups of apricots. Here is her recipe for:
Apricot Pecan Matrimonial Cake
1 1/4 Cups flour
1 Cup rolled oats
1/2 Cup chopped toasted pecans
1 Cup brown sugar
1 tsp soda
3/4 Cup butter
Mix dry ingredients, cut in butter as for pastry.
filling:
2 Cups chopped dried apricots
1 Cup brown sugar
1 Cup water
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Mix apricots, sugar, water and lemon juice in saucepan. Bring to boil, reduce heat, cook until thick.
Spread half the dry mixture in a 9"x9" (or 8"x8") square pan. Cover with filling, then sprinkle remaining dry mixture on top. (The Bag Lady added some extra chopped, toasted pecans on top because she had so many!)
Bake at 300F for 1 hour.
Cool completely. Cut into squares.
This recipe originally calls for using dates instead of apricots, and does not call for pecans. The Bag Lady likes it that way, too, but this makes for a nice change.
(The Bag Lady has no idea why this was called Matrimonial Cake, but her mother used to make it, so the recipe is quite old. Not that the Bag Lady is old.....she's just sayin' the recipe has been around a long time....)
Edit:
Here is a little explanation I found on another blog as to the origin of the recipe.
