Persimmons

Rich's friend Kim called a couple of weeks ago and asked if we wanted the persimmons off her Hachiya tree. We immediately agreed and rearranged our schedule to go to her home and pick persimmons that morning.

Kim lives on a couple of acres in Loomis, about half an hour north of us, with her husband, Rico, and her twins, Rico Jr. and Giuliana. The tree was in their orchard and it was the first time in three years (since the last time Rich picked persimmons) that the tree produced fruit. We ended up with about one box worth of fruit.

That box of fruit has been hanging out in our garage for two weeks. Today, I decided to take a look at the fruit and boy had a lot ripened. Hachiyas ripen into a soft mush, and really, you can't leave that in a box. So I sorted out the ripe ones and put the hard ones back into a box to put back in the garage. If Rich's parents are lucky, they'll hold until we go up for Thanksgiving in two weeks.

Ripe persimmons are unstorable, so I started peeling and squeezing the oozy ripe pulp into a bowl. After a while, I figured I should measure, so I bagged two cups of pulp into one ziploc bag and half an hour later, ended up with about twenty cups total. I froze most of the pulp, using one bag for some persimmon bread. I used a James Beard recipe courtesy of David Lebovitz and made a batch, using small paper molds instead of bread tins. I used half diced dried apricots, half raisins and baked them up. Six little loaves of persimmon bready goodness. If they taste half as good as they look, I'm thinking of using them for the holiday boxes this year.





The verdict? It is definitely scented with some tasty whiskey and the apricots and toasted walnuts were really nice. A little dense, and I think it could stand a little more batter, so maybe I'll aim to make five instead of six from one batch. I think it might look better a little taller. Rich seems to like it and will likely take some for breakfast tomorrow, so it's all good!