Persimmon Bread

I grew up eating persimmons and I loved the taste of that fruit. When I was growing up we mostly had heart shape pointy kind that had to be completely soft and ripe to be eaten. For the longest time I have been looking for English word that describes the feeling when your mouth dries up and "fills with sand" if you take a bite of unripened persimmon. I now know that it is called astringent and not tart. My husband knew the word and did not know I was looking for it. High level of tannins in unripened fruit is causing denaturation of proteins in salivary glands, thus drying and binding up your mouth. If you never experienced that take a bite of heart shape persimmon that is not soft or just bite into banana peel or unripened banana. Awful!

Still I have fond memories of my child hood, when my mom would get a dozen or so persimmons and we would lay them out on the window sill to ripen. I would be turning them around daily, to get them to ripen evenly. It was my ritual to check on my precious persimmons hoping that one is ready to be devoured. They never had a uniform level of ripens. The top near the stem would still be not quite ready, as the bottom would get soggy or even soupy. Then my mom got a different kind of persimmon that was flat and sweet and not at all astringent. That kind has quickly became my favorite, since now, I did not have to wait and bite into a firm fruit, even crunch on it.... I still go weak at the site of persimmon, so when we got our house that was one of the first trees to be adopted by our backyard, right next to feijoa. The first few years there was barely any fruit, less then a dozen in 2 years and then tree grew brunches but remained as skinny as a model on a catwalk. We did not mind the wait. I live in a very well situated neighbourhood, with several oriental stores that always have persimmons on sale in season. Then our tree acclimated and made us proud of the harvest, as if we bore the fruit ourselves. About 4 years ago, as the sometimes windy California winter was approaching, the tree has lost all of it's leafs but was covered with large orange persimmons. Well, we were not fast enough to pick them, but rather preoccupied with chasing the birds that were totally enamored by my beautiful fruits.

The persimmons were very large and heavy, dotting naked branches in an orange salute to winter harvest. My supermodel skinny tree, just could not handle the wind gusts of 30 mph, so the poor thing toppled over breaking right at the ground level..... Needless to say I was devastated.... My garden baby laid fallen across the lawn.



See how skinny is the trunk?

We picked the fruit, cut the branches down, and I ran to the nursery and picked up some Grafting wax. We applied the wax to the wound and lifted up the tree. Bandaged the wound with duck tape and tied the tree to several support posts. At that point all we had to do is wait. So we did. The spring had finally come with new little green buds on the  branches! Yippee! The tree is growing year after year but still is skinny. It's OK! As long as every November there are lots of  orange persimmons on it, I'm comfortable with anorexic trunk of the tree. The birds certainly don't mind that, nor do they mind  the plastic owl we put in the branches to scare them away.

If there are a lot of fruit I share and if the fruit is too soft and looses it's crunch I puree it and add to Persimmon Bread. I heard  that such a thing exists from my Filipino co-workers. Naturally, if you can make Banana nut bread or one out of Zucchini, why not Persimmon. I could not wait for the recipe, so I had to make one up. If there are a lot of ripe persimmons I freeze them in pureed form in Ziploc bags measuring one cup per bag and use them later in the year.

Here is recipe for bread I came up with.

We all occasionally have a container of yogurt that hid behind something else in the fridge, or you underestimated the amount of sour cream or buttermilk you could consume before it expired last week. It does not look bad, and smells OK, but in the trash it goes. No need for that! You can bake it into a lot of thinks like coffee cakes and breads. That does not mean that you do not use fresh products if you have them. Only if dairy is close to expiration and you do not feel comfortable using it straight - it will work in baking. Notice, I'm talking about processed dairy, that is already sour by nature, and that acidity is what is being utilized by the baking process since it reacts with baking soda producing the bubbles and allowing our batter to rise.
6 eggs, 

I did not add raisins to this one(made my husband pout)

2 cup sugar,

1 cup of yogurt or sour cream or butter milk of mix of all,

1 tsp vanilla extract,

1 tsp Cinnamon(or less if you are not a fan of this spice),

pinch of nutmeg and cloves(optional),

3/4-1 cup of oil,

1 cup of pureed ripe persimmon,

3/4 tsp of baking soda,

3/4 tsp baking powder,

2,5 - 3 cups of flour

1 cup of walnuts pieces

1c of raisins (optional)

The reason the oil and flour is not exact is related to the consistency of yogurt/sour cream mixture. Start with less and adjust the batter as needed. I almost never measure most of the stuff I cook but rather do it by look and feel, consistency and texture of the batter or the product, and started measuring just recently so I can share it with everyone. This amount of batter is going to make about 3 small loafs. I made a loaf and a bunt type cake with this amount.

After you turned on the oven to 350°F, start by whipping eggs then gradually add remaining ingredients. Walnuts and raisins last. Oil the pans or I use nonstick spray. Split the batter in to containers and bake for approximately 40-50 min. Check your bread at 30 min interval, then verify if done by inserting a toothpick into the highest part of the bread. One of these was done before the other, because of the difference in size of the pans.

One other thing I did was Persimmon Jam. Let's face it over ripen persimmon is already like jam all that is needed to be done is the last step. Here is what I did. I pureed the over ripened fruits, processed it in food processor, then I measured amount of the puree in cups and added the same amount of sugar. I had about 3 cups of puree and added 3 cups of sugar. I mixed it in the pot over medium heat. until it dissolved. Once it came up to a boil I turned down the heat and cooked for about 5 more min. That's it! Easy and absolutely delicious, like honey but with an amazing flavor.