This super quick and easy to make little sauce is delicious poured over sponge puddings, ice-cream, sliced bananas, chopped nectarines or just mixed with a little creme fraiche or custard and eaten as it is. It gets much of it's sweetness from the naturally occuring sugars in the apricots so it's a far healthier alternative to the more usual, sugar loaded toffee sauces and it's a good source of iron too, the mineral both children and adults alike are most likely to be deficient in. Happy Eating!

Makes 300 ml

Preparation time 5-8 minutes

Cooking time 12-15 minutes

175 g organic dried apricots
25g light muscovado sugar
15g butter

Roughly chop the apricots and place in a heavy based saucepan with the sugar and 200 ml water. Bring to the boil, then cover with a lid and reduce the heat.

Simmer for 12-15 minutes or until the apricots are really soft. Cool then pass through the blender to form a smooth puree. Add the butter and heat gently until the butter has melted. Stir then serve.

NB: The reason I say ‛organic' apricots is because they tend to be ‛unsulphured'. In other words they have not been treated with sulphur dioxide (E220) to help them retain their colour (this is why organic or unsulphured apricots are generally a lot browner in colour). Although the jury is still out, it is thought that sulphur dioxide can trigger certain allergies including asthma in some children and may also be linked with causing hyperactivity in up to 5% of children in this country.