Persimmon Pie

--Or-- 

The Second Pie we didn't eat on Christmas

As you may or may not have realized lately, I have had a few persimmons languishing on my counter. I am pleased to say that we have gone from 3 full bowls of persimmons down to a half a bowl... and nary a persimmon has been tossed out. Having had persimmon margaritas, persimmon bread, persimmon muffins, persimmon cookies, and persimmon leather, it seemed like the only thing left to do was to make a persimmon pie. (As it turns out, that won't be the only thing left... see "half a bowl" of persimmons still, above).

Speaking of more persimmons... any suggestions? What can I do with the rest of them? help!?

Anyway, I set out to make a persimmon pie for Christmas dessert. As it turns out, it was probably just as well that there was extra dessert on Christmas. While there is nothing wrong with persimmon pie, there is nothing particularly exciting about it, either. It just tastes like... sweet. There is no real special flavor to it. Unless you (a) just love persimmons, or (b) have a bunch of ripened persimmons laying around and you need a pie, I would say go ahead and spend your time and energy on something else. However, I fit the (b) category to a "T," so I went for it.

If I were to do a persimmon pie again (and I might... who knows?), I would probably go for a regular pastry crust. The recipe I found here had me make a graham cracker crust. At the time, I was glad (having already a rolled out three pie crusts that day) to make a simpler crust. However, when it came to eating time, there was just so much sweetness in the pie that a plainer crust might have evened things out a bit.

Just in case you are a persimmon lover, or you have a persimmon tree that you need to make use of (or the unwitting neighbor of a persimmon tree), or, like me, you got a bunch of persimmons in your CSA box and you need a pie, I'll give you the recipe.

Persimmon Pie
crust:
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup melted butter

pie filling:
2 cups persimmon pulp
3 eggs
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup melted butter
2 1/2 cups milk
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Mix the crust ingredients in a large bowl, and pat firmly into a pie pan. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes.

Mix persimmon pulp in a stand mixer. Beat in all other ingredients in the order given.

Pour pie filling into prepared crust, and bake at 325, until set (a knife inserted int eh middle should come out clean).

It will come out of the oven looking like a swollen behemoth, but don't get your hopes up. By the time you serve it, it will look much less impressive.

Persimmon pie fresh out of the oven

Persimmon pie after cooling for 1/2 hour

persimmon fruit leather

As I promised yesterday, here is one idea of what can be done with your leftover persimmon puree.

It's so easy your cat could do it. Plus, there is no ingredient other than the persimmon pulp... how great is that?!

Preheat the oven to 250 and cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Spread the persimmon pulp in a very thin, even, layer on the baking sheet.

Place the cookie sheet in the oven for about an hour (it may take longer if your pulp is a thicker layer). It is done when it is dry to the touch. It will shrink as it dries, so the result will come out of the oven in a wrinkly, funny-looking form.

As soon as it is cool, it will quite easily peel from the paper.

Cut it into pieces and store in an airtight container. It doesn't last long around here, but it should be good for a couple of weeks.

I got this idea from eHow.

persimmon cookies

My seven-year-old is a cub scout. Despite the fact that there are certain philosophical differences between myself and the Boy Scouts of America, I can't deny that it has been an amazing experience for him.


I am watching a group of boys learn to do new things -- cute cub-scouty things like tying ropes, folding the American flag, and building model cars, as well as things I never could have predicted like preserving a stamp collection and making ice cream with nitrogen.


All in all, this is a group of rough and tumble boys who much prefer running and shouting to sitting still. They will cooperate long enough to make a chore chart or a poster about how to protect nature, but before long they are back to wrestling, climbing, and tumbling over each other. At summer camp, almost all of them named BB gun shooting and rock climbing as their favorite activities, and I am pretty sure none of them claimed to love the craft center.


We had the chance to host the boys last Saturday night for a Christmas Caroling evening. I had my doubts as to how well it was all going to go, but I didn't need to. These guys were amazing! They remained calm, sang their little hearts out, and melted my neighbor's hearts. Other than some choice add-ons to "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer", I might have thought that somehow we had lost our boys and found angelic replacements.


My job for the evening was to supply the cookies and hot cocoa. Not knowing how many boys to expect exactly, I wasn't exactly sure how many cookies to bake. I basically went with the idea that each boy could eat about 2 dozen cookies (depending on how closely his mother or father was watching). I therefore decided to do 2 dozen cookies times up to 20 boys, which clearly equals: Bake as much as you can all week long, and then hope that it is enough.

Chocolate chip cookies-- one of about 8 platters of cookies I baked.These are my old favorite.

Of course, I couldn't let an opportunity like this go by... it was the perfect chance to share some of the AHO produce!

Since my persimmons are continuing to ripen a bit more each day, I had plenty that were ready to be used. I decided to make a double batch of persimmon cookies.

These cookies, like all persimmon recipes, use persimmon pulp. To get the pulp ready to bake, you just take a persimmon, cut the top off, and puree the fruit in a blender. You may need a couple of teaspoons of water to get the blender going, but then just let it puree until all of the fruit is smooth. Go ahead and puree all of your ripe persimmons. Even though the recipe only calls for 1 cup, the rest can be frozen to use later... or you can make persimmon fruit leather out of it. It's really easy, and I will show you how tomorrow.

Isn't that a beautiful orange color? It's amazingly sweet and yummy too!

Persimmon Cookies

This recipe makes 4-5 dozen small cookies. They are very cake-like, and taste like fall, what with all the cinnamon and whatnot. I based my recipe loosely on the one I found here.

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 cup persimmon pulp
• 
  
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Cream together the butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla; mix well. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Stir flour mixture into sugar mixture. Stir in the persimmon pulp; mix well. The batter is very soft, and a beautiful bright peach color.

• Drop by the teaspoonful on a cookie sheet. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

persimmon margaritas

For about four weeks in a row, I got persimmons in my Abundant Harvest box. I also got a little information, too.

There are two types of persimmons, fuyu and hachiya. The hachiya is heart-shaped, and the fuyu is shorter and more squat, and kinda looks like an orange-ish tomato.

The hachiya persimmon is very astringent, which means that if you try to eat it, your mouth will feel really dry, or like there is suddenly fur all over the inside of your mouth. This can be helped by letting it really ripen. And by ripe, I mean it should become something that you would think is really rotten. It should be so soft and mushy that if you break the skin open, the fruit could literally come pouring out.

The fuyu persimmon isn't nearly so astringent, but it does need to be really ripe before you try it out. It can be eaten with some amount of firmness left.

At any rate, I am not a fan of having my mouth feel like it is furry (go figure), and I am also not a fan of eating fruit that is pure mush.

So for me, the challenge is to try to find ways to enjoy the persimmons in other forms. Considering the fact that I have four bowls of persimmons in different stages of ripening on my counter, I need to find some great uses for them. I baked persimmon bread and muffins (recipes to come later...), and I quite enjoyed persimmon margaritas.  Mmm. It's a great way to take a drink that's reminiscent of a lazy hot summer day, and to give it some flavor of the season.

Persimmon Margarita 
 (from Imbibe Magazine)

1 3/4 ounces tequila
2-3 very ripe persimmons (either kind is fine, as long as they are thoroughly ripened)
1/2 ounce simple syrup (equal parts water and dissolved sugar)
1 ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice
ground cinnamon

Put the flesh of the persimmons and the simple syrup into a blender and puree until smooth. In a cocktail shaker, combine the tequila, 1 1/2 ounces persimmon puree, and lime juice. Shake well with ice, and strain into a glass (rimmed with salt, if you prefer). Sprinkle a pinch of cinnamon on top.