There's a touch of luxury about this delicious dessert which uses fresh apricots in season...not for calorie counters!

Ingredients

Filling

• 50 grams softened butter
• ¼ cup caster sugar
• 1 egg
• grated rind one orange
• 70 gram packet ground almonds
• ½ cup self raising flour

grams fresh apricots, stoned and thinly sliced

• Base
• 8 sheets filo pastry

grams melted butter

• Topping
• 2 Tblsp flaked almonds
• ¼ cup liquid honey
• ½ cup orange juice
• 2 Tblsp orange liqueur (optional)

Method

1. Beat the butter, sugar, egg and orange rind together until light and creamy.Stir in the flour and almonds.
2. Brush one sheet with butter and top with a further sheet. Repeat this process using half the filo sheets. Fold in half and use the sheets to line the base of a 20cm x 30cm slice tin. Spread the cake mixture on top.
3. Arrange the sliced apricots on top. Brush the remaining filo sheets with butter as before fold in half and place on top of the sponge mixture. Brush the top of the croustade with remaining butter and scatter over the flaked almonds.
4. Bake at 190ºC for 30 minutes or until golden brown and crisp. Heat together the honey, liqueur, orange juice and orange liqueur, if using and spoon the mixture over the hot croustade. Cut into squares and serve warm or cold with cream.

Cooks Tips

- This is a great recipe for a dinner dessert. Add two tablespoons orange liqueur to the syrup and serve with whipped cream. - Filo will dry out and become too brittle to handle once out of the packet. Keep the filo that you are not working on at any one time under the cover of a slightly damp clean cloth. Do not have it too damp as the pastry will become soggy.