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Persimmons

‘Simmon Pudding with Bourbon Whipped Cream

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Oh bring us some ‘simmon puddin’

Oh bring us some ‘simmon puddin’

Oh bring us some ‘simmon puddin’

and bring it right now!

Now that I’ve discovered the incredible flavor that is wild persimmons,

That’s how I imagine that this Christmas carol would go if it had been written in the south. img_4562

My mama and I made some plum (figgy) pudding a couple of years ago and it was such a fun, nostagic project that had plans to make it every Christmas from then on, but honestly, I wasn’t a huge fan of how it tasted. But this, y’all. Oh this. It turns out that European American settlers made this pudding all winter with the tiny squishy persimmons that grew wild (and that Native Americans had been gathering and eating all along) and, in my opinion, it’s SO MUCH more divine than the one they make across the pond. I tampered a teeny bit with a Saveur recipe and added some bourbon whipped cream, and well… I’d say it’s a holiday dessert MUST MAKE. Plus, although it takes a little time to cook, it is EEEEAAASSSY.

Note: If you don’t relish the job of foraging and then scooping out 2 cups worth of wild persimmon pulp, you can cheat and use store bought persimmons. I won’t tell.

Oh bring us some 'simmon pudding
 
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Author:
Serves: 1 9"x13" pan
What You Need
  • FOR THE PUDDING:
  • Pulp from enough ripe persimmons to make 2 cups (about 5 hachiyas or Fuyu, OR about 3 pounds of wild very smushy ripe persimmons)
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1 1⁄2 cups buttermilk
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • 1 1⁄2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1⁄2 tsp. cinnamon
  • ½ tsp nutmeg
  • Pinch salt
  • 1⁄4 cup heavy cream
  • 4 tbsp. butter, melted
  • FOR THE BOURBON WHIPPED CREAM
  • 1 Cup whipping cream
  • 3 Tablespoons powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon bourbon
What to Do
  1. Preheat your oven to 350°. Place a large roasting pan filled with water ½ way or other way to create a water bath into the oven to warm. (Using a water bath will keep the center of the pudding moist. You can also use a traditional plum pudding mold that is then steamed...google that if you want to know more!)
  2. After you've gotten the fleshy pulp from the persimmons (if you're using wild, you'll need to skin them and also strain the pulp for the large seeds) add it and sugar into a large bowl.
  3. Beat in the eggs.
  4. Add in the buttermilk and baking soda into a separate medium bowl, and stir. Add to pulp, and mix well.
  5. Sift together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt into the medium bowl (i like to reuse bowls when I can). Slowly add the flour mixture to the pulp, stirring until it's totally and thoroughly combined.
  6. Add heavy cream, and mix.
  7. Grease a 9'' X 13'' baking dish with a small amount of the melted butter
  8. Stir remaining butter into batter.
  9. Pour batter into dish.
  10. Place the baking dish into the water bath that's been warming in the oven, bake until dark brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 1 hour, 20 minutes. OR bake according to your traditional plum pudding mold directions.
  11. Set aside to cool. Serve with bourbon whipped cream. (recipe below)
  12. FOR THE WHIPPED CREAM:
  13. In a COLD bowl and with a COLD whisk implement on your mixer (or your hand held emulsion blender) mix the cream, extract, bourbon, and sugar until frothy and until it has peaks. If you over mix it will turn into butter.

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Wild Persimmon & Bourbon Breakfast Bread

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Wild Persimmons: Bourbon Breakfast Bread
 
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The most time consuming part of this process is getting the persimmon pulp, but I assure you, the flavor is like NOTHING else and it's even more exciting because it grows wild and is connected to native peoples and early european settlers.
Author:
Recipe type: Breakfast or Dessert
Serves: 4 loaves
What You Need
  • FOR THE BREAD:
  • 2 cups sifted cake flour
  • ½ teaspoons salt
  • 2 teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 2 cups sugar
  • ½ cup melted unsalted butter or vegetable oil
  • 2 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
  • 1 Tablespoon Bourbon
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 cups persimmon puree (about 3 cups of wild persimmons)
  • FOR THE FROSTING:
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 18 oz package cream cheese
  • 2½ teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp bourbon
  • 4 to 5 cups confectioners’ sugar
What to Do
  1. FOR THE BREAD:
  2. First things first: you have to get the persimmon puree'. A note about wild persimmons... you know they're ripe if they've fallen off the tree or are SUPER wrinkly and soft... like a deflated helium balloon. Once they're at that stage, and you've got a food mill, the you can use it to separate the skin and the seeds from the pulp. If not, then peel the skin away from the pulp and squeeze it into a wire strainer over a bowl. Using the back of a spoon, push the pulp through the strainer and into the bowl, leaving the large seeds. The pulp can be frozen for use later.
  3. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
  4. Prepare your bread or cake pans by coating the insides with butter and lightly flouring the inside.
  5. Mix all of the dry ingredients/spices except the sugar (flour, baking powder, soda, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon) together in a separate medium sized bowl. You may wish to sift this so they are combined consistently.
  6. Then, in a large mixing bowl, combine the puree', the butter or oil, and the sugar until it is entirely incorporated.
  7. Mix in the eggs, the vanilla, and the bourbon.
  8. Cup by cup, mix in the dry ingredients into the puree' mixture. Fold in until just mixed together.
  9. Pour the batter into 2-8" round cake pans, or 2- 9" bread pans, or 4-5" bread pans and bake until a toothpick can be inserted and comes out clean. (somewhere about 20-30 minutes depending on the size of your pan).
  10. FOR THE FROSTING:
  11. Using an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed until its all creamy.
  12. Add cream cheese and vanilla and bourbon, and beat until it's totally incorporated.
  13. Gradually increase the speed and beat until the cheese and butter mixture fluffy, scraping down the sides of bowl if you need to.
  14. Add in the powdered sugar one cup at a time, scraping down if you need to until everything is fully incorporated.
  15. PUTTING IT TOGETHER:
  16. Once the cake has cooled, frost it, slice it and serve it with a cup of coffee. it is even good at room temperature or straight from the fridge.

How perfect are persimmons? The gorgeous, peachy-oranged fleshed fruit that ripen into wrinkly, sweet pulp are not only the most lovely subjects for still life paintings ever, but also have been used in foods from puddings to beer for generations (read more about its history at American Food Roots). Until my friend Joseph brought me some that he’d found in the woods I’d never tried one and didn’t know that they’d played a large role in the diets of native people in our part of the world AND my southern ancestors. But now I know why.

When I saw the perfect little rosy “sugar plums” I couldn’t resist biting into one….but boy did I regret it. The skin of wild persimmons, dispyros virginiania (small, peachy fruit with smooth skin that’s a bit smaller than a golf ball and has several large, hard seeds) is VERY, VERY bitter and made my mouth feel like I’d covered it in a dry, awful tasting powder. But the inside flesh was soft, very sweet, and super fragrant.

In fact, when I just got a taste of the flesh I was in love. It was divine! And so different! Eventually I’d like to make a beer or vinegar using this lovely little fruit, but to start, I made something I felt pretty comfortable with… persimmon bread loosely based on James Beard’s version but with the added ah-mazingness that is cream cheese buttercream. I also made another batch and shaped it into a cake, which was brown like pumpernickle bread but was something like carrot cake. It really was PERFECT for breakfast, and super easy. If you’ve got folks staying over for Thanksgiving, then this is a nice change from the ubiquitous holiday sweet rolls for breakfast, especially since it makes use of local wild fruit you can find in the woods AND harkens back to the earliest settler’s food.

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