I don’t know if it’s some kind of climatic aberration just at my house, or citywide, or all over the West, but my persimmons are ripe. This from a tree that never had ripe persimmons until December, and ONLY after a good freeze, and ONLY after all the leaves had fallen off and the pretty orange fruit hung brilliant against the dark leafless branches. These are the persimmon conditions, solemnly agreed to when you buy a hachiya persimmon tree.
But now, they are as ripe and squishy as little water balloons in October when it’s still 90 degrees every afternoon, and all the leaves are very much intact on the tree. Oy! This is going to be a hot, luscious mess way beyond the capacity of my one backyard chicken when they start to fall.
When a tree works all year to make something lovely and delicious, I think you need to show some respect and get out there and pick it before it drops on the ground and goes to waste, so I lined a basket with an un-favorite towel to absorb the bright orange squish and picked a dozen or so persimmons. They were so ripe, they came right off the calyx, that green crown that usually stays with the fruit. I found a great-sounding James Beard persimmon bread recipe and thought I’d double it to use up more ripe fruit.
Things were trucking right along until I got to the 4 cups of puréed persimmon — I was about half a cup short, so headed back to the tree with my basket and clippers. Now here’s the crazy part — there were no more ripe persimmons! The tree was bent low by hundreds of fruits, but in each branch of 12 –15 persimmons, there had been only one or two that were squishy ripe, and I had picked every single one. It was as if at night, while we were sleeping, a bony witch’s finger of frost had daintily touched one fruit on a branch, then moved on to another: “this one, no — this one, ah! This one up here”.
There’s no convincing a rock-hard unripe persimmon to be otherwise in a matter of minutes, so I finished the recipe with a little less persimmon than required, and skipped the emergency baking of persimmon cookies until December, when the rest of the fruit would ripen.
This is the James Beard persimmon bread recipe, and be forewarned it has a strong cognac flavor in addition to all the moist goodness of persimmon, raisins and walnuts. I associate that school of flavors with fall baking: apple cake with Calvados, fruit cake laced with brandy, and plum pudding with hard sauce, but if you don’t like those flavors, cut back on the cognac, substitute bourbon, or skip the alcohol all together. It’s a great recipe, doubles well, and has an interesting method.
James Beard’s Persimmon Bread
Two 9-inch loaves
Adapted from “Beard on Bread” by James Beard.
Ingredients:
3½ cups sifted flour
1½ teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2½ cups sugar
1 cup melted unsalted butter and cooled to room temperature
4 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
2/3 cup Cognac, bourbon or whiskey
2 cups persimmon puree (from about 4 large squishy-soft hachiya persimmons)
2 cups walnuts or pecans, toasted and chopped
2 cups raisins, or diced dried fruits (such as apricots, cranberries, or dates)
Directions:
1. Butter two loaf pans. Line the bottoms with a piece of parchment paper or dust with flour and tap out any excess.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius).
3. Sift the first five dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
4. Make a well in the center then stir in the butter, eggs, liquor, persimmon puree then the nuts and raisins.
5. Bake 1 hour or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Storage: Will keep for about a week, if well-wrapped, at room temperature. The Persimmon Breads take well to being frozen, too.
Try a slice in the afternoon with goat cheese or Orland Farmstead Creamery’s Fromage Banc, winner of the 2014-2015 World Cheese Gold Award, and a cup of tea while enjoying Li-Young Lee’s poem, “Persimmons,” which begins:
In sixth grade Mrs. Walker
Slapped the back of my head
And made me stand in the corner
For not knowing the difference
Between persimmon and precision.
How to choose
Persimmons. This is precision.
Ripe ones are soft and brown-spotted.
Sniff the bottoms. The sweet one
will be fragrant. How to eat:
put the knife away, lay down newspaper.
Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat.
Chew the skin, suck it,
And swallow. Now eat
The meat of the fruit, so sweet,
All of it, to the heart …
———
In case you’ve misplaced it, I’m including my grandmother’s, and your grandmother’s as well, I’m sure, Persimmon Cookie Recipe. It’s the classic one, puffed up and light with raisins and toasted walnuts that I always associate with fall. Really there isn’t another drop cookie that’s quite the same. Tuck it away for when the persimmons really do ripen in November or December.
These are a wonderfully soft, moist cookie. This recipe is as written from my grandmother’s recipe card except for the 1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves. I think the cookies are much better with just cinnamon and nutmeg, so I left the cloves out. My mom added chocolate chips for my brothers, who don’t consider it a cookie unless it has chocolate chips
Grandmother’s persimmon cookie recipe
Yield: 36 cookies
Total time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup persimmon pulp
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped toasted walnuts
Directions:
Preheat the oven to bake at 375 degrees F. Grease or line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add egg, and then add persimmon pulp and baking soda. Mix well (the mixture will still be a bit clumpy).
In another bowl combine flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves and whisk together by hand until well combined, about 30 seconds. Stir the dry mixture into the wet ingredients until just combined. Stir in the nuts and raisins. (Chilling the cookie dough at this point will help give fluffier cookies.)
Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto the prepared sheet pan. Keep cookies small and far apart as they spread out. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until set and light golden around the edges. Allow to cool and serve. Enjoy with a glass of milk and homework at the kitchen table.
… Mrs. Walker brought a persimmon to class
and cut it up
so everyone could taste
a Chinese apple. Knowing
it wasn’t ripe or sweet, I didn’t eat
but watched the other faces.
My mother said every persimmon has a sun
Inside, something golden, glowing,
warm as my face …
For the rest of the poem, look up “Persimmons” by Li-Young Lee at the Poetry Foundation.
Happy Halloween – See you in November.
