Apricot Mud Hen Cake Bars

Week 507, and the dark arriving early, the kitchen warm against the cold, the soups simmering, the bread rising. I am 68 years old and the days have a rhythm now — the morning writing, the afternoon visits to Cedarhurst, the evening cooking, the weekly blog post — and the rhythm is the structure, and the structure is the sanity, and the sanity is required because the rest of it, the losing and the loving and the carrying, requires a sane woman at the helm, and I am sane, mostly, except when I cry in the car in the Cedarhurst parking lot, which is not insanity but its opposite: the specific, targeted release of emotion in a contained space, which is the most rational thing I do all week.

Ethan graduates elementary; rugelach; chain of graduations. These are the facts of the week, the data points, the things I would put in a report if I were writing a report, which I am not — I am writing a life, and the life includes the facts but is not limited to them, because the life also includes the way the kitchen smells at six in the morning when the coffee is brewing and the challah is rising and the house is quiet and the quiet is both the grief and the peace, simultaneously, and the simultaneous is the condition, the permanent condition of a woman who is 68 and alone and not alone, who is a grandmother and a wife and a writer and a cook and a caregiver and all of these things at once, always at once, braided together like the challah.

I made rugelach this week — because it was what the week needed, because the week always needs something and the something is always food, and the food is always the answer, and the answer is always the kitchen, and the kitchen is always mine, and the mine-ness of the kitchen is the one thing that has not changed in sixty-seven years of living, from Sylvia's kitchen on the Grand Concourse to this kitchen in Oceanside where I stand every morning and every evening and many of the hours in between, making the food that is the chain, that is the love, that is the thing I do when I don't know what else to do, which is always, and especially now.

I brought food to Marvin at the usual time. The visit was what visits are now — quiet, steady, the feeding by hand when necessary, the reading aloud always, the holding of the hand that may or may not know it is being held but that is warm and alive and present, which is the definition of love in this particular year: warm and alive and present. He ate what I brought. He received what I gave. The receiving is the relationship. The receiving is the vow. In sickness and in health, in recognition and in forgetting, in the recliner and in the kitchen, the receiving is the marriage, and the marriage continues, one container at a time, one visit at a time, one day at a time, at two o'clock, every day, because the chain does not break.

I made rugelach this week, yes — but I also made these bars, because apricot is the flavor of ceremony in my kitchen, the flavor of Ethan’s graduation and Marvin’s two o’clock and the whole braided, layered, never-ending chain of it. The apricot jam pressed into a cookie base and crowned with meringue and nuts is exactly what a week like this one looks like from the inside: something sweet held between two sturdier things, soft at the center, golden at the edges, best understood once it has cooled and been cut into pieces and handed to someone you love.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 24 bars

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup apricot jam or preserves
1 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat and prepare. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan and lightly flour it, or line with parchment paper.
Make the base. In a large bowl, cream the softened butter and granulated sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the 3 egg yolks one at a time until fully incorporated.
Add dry ingredients. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt until a soft dough forms. Press the dough evenly into the bottom of the prepared pan in a thin, uniform layer.
Spread the jam. Spoon the apricot jam over the dough base and spread it gently to the edges, leaving a very small border. Use a warm offset spatula if the jam is stiff.
Make the meringue topping. In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites with vanilla extract until soft peaks form. Gradually add the brown sugar, beating continuously until the mixture is glossy and holds firm peaks. Fold in the chopped nuts.
Top and bake. Spread the meringue-nut topping over the apricot jam layer, covering it completely. Bake for 30–35 minutes, until the top is golden brown and set. The edges will color a shade deeper than the center — that is correct.
Cool and cut. Allow bars to cool completely in the pan on a wire rack, at least 45 minutes, before cutting into 24 squares. They slice cleanest when fully cooled.

Nutrition (per serving)

Apricot Mud Hen Cake Bars — The Chain That Doesn’t Break