Mazurki!

No, it's not a folk dance, although it sounds like one -- it's a chewy, moist fruit bar from an old Russian recipe. There's another Mazurki, a Polish pastry, but this recipe is different. As nearly as I can tell, the original recipe probably had candied fruit instead of jam, but otherwise it seems to have changed little.

Let's waltz into the kitchen and begin!

Mazurki

Ingredients:

1 c. each: dried currants, raisins, chopped blanched almonds, chopped walnuts and dried apricots -- or any combination of dried fruit and nuts, as long as the proportions stay the same

1 c. thick jam (such as strawberry or other small fruit)*

2 eggs, unbeaten

1 t. vanilla

2 c. flour (I use whole wheat pastry flour)

Chop apricots. Chop nuts to desired texture -- I chop them fairly fine.





Mix all ingredients, except flour, until well blended. Add flour and stir in.









Spread in an oiled 11" x 15" shallow pan to depth of 1/2 inch. Bake at 300 degrees about 35 minutes.
Remove from oven; cut into diamond shapes (or squares or rectangles or go wild!) and return pan to oven for 5 minutes to dry cut edges. Remove to a wire cake rack to cool, and enjoy!

So... do the foxtrot, waltz, polka, boogie down, jitterbug, watusi, disco on into your kitchen, and give this recipe a spin! And while you're in there, remember, cook, eat, dance, dance, dance... and most important of all, love!

*for this particular batch, I used maple-apple preserves, because it was what I had the most of... you can see the chunks of apple, especially in the photo of the Mazurki still in the pan.