Fuyu Persimmons

This fall, I’ve been thinking of fruits that I love that hit their peak during this time of year.  One of my favorites is the Fuyu persimmon, which is in season from October through December.  As you may know, there are different types of persimmon varieties.  The non-astringent Fuyu variety is the best, in my opinion.  It really is difficult to compare it to any other fruit I have had.  They have orange skin and flesh.  They are dense like an apple and pretty mild in flavor.  I recently made a cookie recipe that incorporated Fuyus and they are really good.  If you like cakey cookies, this is a good recipe to try.  It is based off of Jessica Gavin’s Persimmon Cookie recipe found at jessicagavin.com.  I have just made some minor adjustments to that recipe.

Fuyu Persimmon Cookies:

Ingredients:

-1 cup Fuyu persimmon puree 

*you can make your own Fuyu persimmon puree by mixing the flesh of 4 Fuyu persimmons in a food processor with about 1/4-1/2 cup water

-1/2 cup unsalted butter

-1 egg

-3/4 cup granulated sugar

-1/4 cup light brown sugar

-2 ¼ cup all-purpose flour

-1 tsp baking soda

-a dash of kosher salt

-1/4 tsp ginger

-1/2 tsp cinnamon

-1/4 tsp nutmeg

-1/4 tsp allspice

-1/3 cup old fashioned oats

-1/2 cup chopped pecans

-1/2 cup dried cranberries

Directions:

  1. Heat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit 
  2. Set aside two baking sheets and line them with either Silpat mats or parchment paper
  3. In a bowl, sift the flour, salt, baking soda, and all of the spices together…give them a stir so they are fully incorporated and set aside
  4. In a mixer, cream the butter and the sugars together until fluffy, then add the egg, followed by the persimmon puree
  5. After the wet ingredients have been combined, add the dry ingredient mixture slowly in increments until full incorporated
  6. Slowly add the cranberries, oats and pecans just until they are fully incorporated throughout the batter
  7. The mixture is going to be more similar to cake batter than cookie batter
  8. Take a greased ice cream scoop and scoop out the dough on the lined cookie sheets—I like to do about 6 per cookie sheet (if it’s a large cookie sheet)
  9. Bake until cookies are firm, puffy and lightly browned—about 15 minutes or so (watch them closely as they may bake at different rates, depending at what altitude you are located)
  10. Once done, put the cookies on a cooling rack and let set for about 10 minutes before eating