When choosing a filling for cookies or pastries, using the right recipe is important. While it may be tempting to use jam or preserves to fill your baked treats, the texture is generally too thin for this purpose. A filling needs to be thick to stand up to the high heat of baking. This apricot filling known as lekvar (apricot butter) is perfect for filling hamantaschen, cookies, kolaches, or pastries.
This filling is so easy to make, and the results are scrumptious. Apricot doesn’t need much “dressing up”– the sweetness of a baked cookie or pastry combined with this succulent, slightly tart filling make for a truly special treat. I love using this filling for hamantaschen, the traditional Jewish cookie for the holiday Purim. It also works really well for kolaches. You can use it to fill danishes, swirl it through sweet baked cakes (strudel or apricot babka anyone?), or use it as a spreadable apricot butter. So many possibilities!
Need a delicious and foolproof hamantaschen dough recipe? For my Dairy Free Hamantaschen dough, click here. For my Buttery Hamantaschen dough, click here. To learn how to make kolaches, click here.
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Apricot Filling for Cookies, Pastries, Hamantaschen and Kolaches
Ingredients
- 2 cups dried pitted apricots
- 1 cup water
- 1/4 cup orange juice
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- Pinch salt
Instructions
- Combine all of the ingredients in a saucepan. Stir and bring to a boil for one minute.Reduce heat to medium low so the mixture simmers slowly and constantly. Cover the pot.Let the mixture simmer covered for 30 minutes, stirring every few minutes.
- Remove the lid from the pan. Let the apricots continue to simmer for 2-3 more minutes, stirring frequently, until most of the liquid has evaporated/absorbed. Keep a close eye on the pan to make sure the apricots don't burn. When there are about 3 tbsp of liquid left in the pan, remove from heat.
- Mash the apricots with a potato masher till a smooth puree forms. Run a fork through the mixture to break up any pieces the potato masher missed. You can also use an immersion blender for a smoother puree, if desired.
- Let cool to room temperature before using. Store in a sealed, airtight container in the refrigerator. Refrigerating the filling to chill completely will make it easier to work with when filling cookies like hamantaschen.
Nutrition
absolutely loved this! I use this filling every year for purim <3 the best apricot jam for hamantaschen, hands down.
Tori this is the 3 rd year I’ve used your Hamantaschen recipes. I find yours the best. The pareve ones are so much easier to use the dough. We can’t tell difference between the butter version really!
Thank you so much for your yummy variety of fillings. I’ve also added cheesecake filling and pecAn pie filling.
Can you tell me if you’ve experimented with a savory pareve dough to do a mushroom onion filling? Would prefer yours if you have one. Thanks!
Tasty and easy to make. Apricots didn’t seem in danger of sticking or burning at any point. Potato masher broke them up very easily. I had to boil it a bit longer than the recipe says after uncovering to reduce the liquid, but no biggie. Maybe because the apricots I used aren’t exactly like the ones here, they were much darker. The flavor is very nice and I can’t wait to use them in hamantaschen tomorrow. It would also make a good toast spread with a little less sugar.
Would it taste fine with the added sugar? Dried apricots are already sweet. What are your thoughts?
Thank you!
The sugar helps a bit with the thickening of the filling, but probably ok to leave it out as long as you cook the liquid down to make sure it’s quite thick.
What dried apricots do you use? Last year I used some Turkish ones and it looked brown and the flavor didn’t taste how I would expect.
Try California apricots for a more bright color.
This is a great recipe. Next time I would like to try large dicing the apricots before starting the process. I also found the potato masher didn’t work that great so I put the cooked mixture in a food processor and pureed it. I did the trick. We used the apricot butter in Hungarian Pastries and they we just like mom used to make.
I have been looking for an apricot filling like my mother used to make for her long rolls. This is it! It worked perfectly. The only thing I did differently was to grind the apricots first (that’s what mom did). Thank you.
This sounds really good and I would like to try it but with fresh apricots? Any ideas what the conversion might be 2 cups fresh to 1 cup of dried?
I do not recommend making this substitute with this recipe, as fresh apricots contain a ton of liquid that releases when cooked – I would need to test it to give you the proper adjustments and timing for everything. If I ever do try it I’ll try to remember to report back here.
How do you make your dough?
All of my dough recipes are linked in this post: https://toriavey.com/how-to/how-to-make-perfect-hamantaschen/
This is my favorite filling for hamantaschen. This year I learned–by accident–that your apricot filling makes a perfect spread for a charcuterie board, too!
Love this idea!
Hi,
Can you substitute water for the orange juice? If not water, is there another liquid you can use instead?
Thank you for your help,
Phyllis
Yes you can use water, or apricot nectar.
made this delicious filling this week to fill your parve hamantachen. I made the hamantachen the day after. my question is, how will the filing last in the fridge?
shabbat shalom
barb passo
Hi Barbara, it should last 1-2 weeks in the refrigerator. Sugar and lemon juice are natural preservatives.
How long can your prune or apricot filling stay in the refrigerator?
1-2 weeks.
Love your recipes! I’ve been making your humentash recipe/lekvar recipe for a few years and everyone says they’re
The best they’ve ever had.
Have tried some of your other recipes and all of them have been exceptional!
Thank you so much for making me into a better baker?
Thanks Sheila!
All done and very good, as usual from this site! ?
I’m gonna make this now. So I have a question, Tori! My Mom told me that Purim was on Tuesday (because she looked at Adar I so I got to work in a panic, making your dough for Hamantaschen. It’s done and chilling in the fridge. Then I looked and saw Purim is way later, as I originally thought. Uch. CAn I freeze the raw dough to use in March or must I make them all tomorrow? Thank you in advance!
You can freeze the dough. 🙂
Tori, I adore this recipe – it is my go-to for making pretty much any sweets with fruit options. Especially considering the apricots (the only ingredient I don’t always have on hand anyway) are very cheap in bulk at my local grocer.
However, I had a friend ask me for a batch of cookies that was filled with cherries *and* apricots, mixed together. I’d never done a cherry filling and I really didn’t want to do a cherry pie filling, since I personally find it far too sweet… And that’s not even considering my complex about never buying fillings in a can!
Anyway, what I did was make one batch of the apricot lekvar to spec, then I substituted dried cherries (definitely not as cheap even in bulk!!), and added about two tablespoons of local honey to take some of the edge off the bitterness the cherry skins lend to the flavor. They did need to simmer longer, almost double the time, to get a little less waterlogged. I broke them up a bit with a fork right in the kettle while they were simmering to help the process along, I may just dice them next time before they hit the stove at all. After that it was a quick whiz in the food processor and I had a perfectly textured cherry filling.
Mixed the two batches together and honestly, it tastes wonderful. I haven’t even baked the cookies yet, and I have to keep stopping myself from taking just one more nibble!
I am looking for a filling to make a long apricot roll, kind of like a nut or poppy seed roll but with the apricot filling instead. Do you think this would be a good recipe to use?
Tori, could you please clarify the type of apricot-California or Mediterranean. Thank you
Hi Linda– either will work. I usually choose the ones that have the brightest orange color, as that makes for a prettier filling. Mediterranean apricots have a bit more liquid in them, so they may need to cook a bit longer to achieve the desired filling texture.
I love this recipe and can’t believe I previously wasted money on the store-bought stuff! Has anyone frozen the filling for use a couple of weeks later? My plans to make hamentashen were recently thwarted (my friend has gone gluten-free) but I’d like to use this for rainbow cookies in a couple of weeks. Thank you!
Genna, you can make GF hamentashen. There are recipes floating around. They don’t hold the shape as well, even if you refrigerate, but with some tweaking, can taste very good! Good luck if you read this. This filling is very good!