Up until a few weeks ago, I couldn't have picked a persimmon out of a line up. But they started appearing at my market, and I was curious. But like all things new to me, they were frightening. I've learned my lesson when it comes to buying things because I might be able to make something out of them. This goes for everything from food to the fringe you see on old lamps. So I just kept passing them by.Then I saw this post about using them in baked goods and decided that the best thing to do was exactly what this post said.
So I started by making the Persimmon Cinnacrunch Muffins, a variation on those found in American Vegan Kitchen.
They turned out wonderfully and got rave reviews from the family.
I had plenty of left over pulp, so I decided to make some cookies. I hadn't printed any recipes, and none of my books had one, so I looked up a bunch, then sort of just made it up. It's crazy simple, and turned out really well. Except they're not terribly attractive. I generally prefer to have no dried fruit or nuts in my cookies, but it seems like people do that a lot with persimmons. I might be persuaded to try white chocolate chips though. I was going to frost these, but had lots to do and got lazy. Maybe I'll get inspired when I defrost the batch I froze.
I included the recipe below. They were pretty sweet, so next time I'll probably go to 3/4 a cup of sugar. Here's the recipe - let me know if you have any great ideas for jazzing it up.
Persimmon Cookies
•1/2 cup shortening
•1 cup white sugar
•1 teaspoon vanilla extract
•2 cups all-purpose flour
•1/2 teaspoon baking soda
•1/2 teaspoon baking powder
•1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
•1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
•1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
•1/4 teaspoon salt
•1 cup persimmon pulp
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease cookie sheets.
2. Cream together the shortening, sugar, and vanilla.
3. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add to the creamed sugar mix.
4. Stir in the persimmon pulp.
5. Drop by the tablespoonful onto cookie sheet.
6. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes.
Persimmons are one of my favorite fruits. It's a great idea to bake with them. They're good frozen too; if you get nice soft,ripe ones, cut the leaf/bud part off the top, put a popsicle stick in and freeze: out of the freezer dunk them in a bowl of room temperature water and the skin will come off easily...then you have a frozen persimmon pop.
ReplyDeleteYum! I actually have a persimmon tree in my yard. My mom has done some baking with persimmons before but never vegan. I must try this recipe, thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThat's a great tip Rose! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI'm jealous Jacklyn. I would be happy for any kind of fruit tree in my yard, but persimmons would be so perfect. Let me know how the baking turns out.