Mary-Lou's Famous Apricot Cake Cookies

Use 18 oz of apricots + ¼ of a 7 oz pkg (pkgs come in 7 or 8 ozs)

1.Chop apricots into small pieces --Place in sauce pot— add water to cover and sugar to taste (approx 1/8 cup ) Simmer slowly until water pretty much absorbed to spreading consistency (will still have a little water still visible). Set aside to cool.

Grind 1# of walnuts and add ½ cup sugar. Blend well with a fork. Set aside.
Grease a large cookie sheet with raised sides. (approx 17 x 12)
Soften ½# margarine to room temp.

Heat oven 350

Mix in large bowl:
5 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
2 tsp baking soda
4 tsp baking powder

Work-in margarine in above dry ingredients with a pastry blender as you would when making pie crust. It will appear a little lumpy.

Mix with a fork or hand-stirrer blender:
1/2 pt of sour cream
4 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla

Mix with above dry ingredients. Make sure you get all the flour mixture mixed from the bottom of the bowl. I use my hands. The dough will not be real moist but moist enough to knead into three balls. One ball can be smaller- this will be for the lattice work strips for top of cookie.

1. Roll one ball between wax paper (makes it easier to roll) to size of cookie sheet. This will be a little thin but not too thin to work with. After in cookie sheet press dough to sides having a little dough going up sides of pan to keep nuts on dough. You have to work with dough so that cookie sheet is completely covered. The dough is flexible enough to spread or press with fingers. You can patch holes by pressing pieces of dough on them & spreading with fingers.

2. Add nut mixture on top of dough. Pat nuts down slightly.

3. Roll next ball same way as above. Place on top of nuts. Can be difficult to get entire nuts covered but just roll thin pieces to piece dough together. It won’t show on the finished cookie but just make sure all nuts are covered. Raise sides slightly to hold apricots .

4. Spread apricot mixture on top

5. Roll 3rd ball out - cut in strips –place strips on top of apricot to form lattice work, I put strips length wise, then from side to side and lastly place strips along all sides to cover all strips. If strips break, just cut small piece or as long as needed & press together.

Bake 350 for 25 min. (Seem like it stays moister if frozen. Can freeze up to 1 year. Enjoy