Baked Apricots with Lemon Tea

No fancy cakes or cookies this weekend... Just these apricots in a syrup infused with lemon verbena, vanilla and star anise... Flavours in perfect harmony. Together with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, these were a wonderful dessert on this warm lazy summer weekend.

Recipe

(from my beloved Tender by Nigel Slater)

500g fresh apricots
a handful of lemon verbena or 2 verveine tea bags
2-3 tablespoons sugar
2 star anise
1 vanilla pod

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Wash the apricots, cut them into halves and remove the stone. Lay the halves into a shallow baking dish.

Bring water to the boil, pour into a heatproof  measuring jug to come up to 750ml. Drop the leaves or tea bags and leave them for 5 minutes, then fish them out and throw them away. Stir the sugar into the tea until it has dissolved, then pour over the apricots, tucking in the star anise and the vanilla pod as you go.

Bake the apricot for about forty minutes, until they are tender. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before chilling them thoroughly. You can store them in an airtight container in the fridge for a few days.