Persimmon Bread

Recipe: Persimmon Bread

Source: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/persimmon-bread#

Time: 2 hours*

Ease: 7

Taste: 10

Leftover Value: 10

Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!

*The recipe says three hours, but this is only if you include the complete cooling time.  With the initial 20 minutes of cooling, the time does not exceed 2 hours and 20 minutes.

My husband's uncle, Gordon, always makes me look at food through a completely different perspective.  He is one hundred percently the definition of a minimalist where food is concerned.  He is a wild supporter of fruits and veggies, and down plays the importance of extravagant seasonings on anything he eats.  We only see him two or three times a year since he lives in the sunnier and warmer side of America, but when I see him I know for certain I will learn something new and have a good time.

On Christmas, as we were relaxing between opening presents and waiting for dinner, Gordon walked around offering everyone a piece of persimmon bread made from persimmons grown on his property back home.  I had never heard of a persimmon before, but wouldn't refuse trying something new and delicious looking.

After first bite, I knew this was certainly something I needed in my life.  Despite never having met a real live persimmon before, I jotted 'persimmon bread' down in my rolling list of things to research and write about.  

These are persimmons:

Wait a minute.  One of these things is not like the other.  Can you spot it?

Since I had only eaten persimmon bread, and not actually seen the fruit itself, finding my way around chopping one up was the largest ordeal in this recipe.  A persimmon is ripe when it is orange all around.  I had one or two that still had a little green so I set them aside to have another day sliced in a salad.

I should have taken a picture of the massacre that followed lopping off the tops of the persimmons, but at that point in this recipe I was persimmoned out.  This picture is extremely deceiving, but the process of "scooping persimmon flesh from the skins" as the recipes states, is ridiculously time consuming and not to mention, down right difficult.

Zesting a orange, however, is simple.

Using orange or lemon zest always intrigues and baffles me at the same time.  I would never want to eat an orange peel, yet somehow, the essence of that peel can add a bounty of flavor to a recipe.

I had my fingers crossed that when I pureed the persimmons they would actually puree.  Somewhere during the battle of chopping and  "scooping the flesh" I began to give up hope that this recipe would turn out as delicious as Gordon's had been.  

Especially when I realized I was a little under a quarter cup short of the needed persimmon puree.

Since I had applesauce on hand, I added that to level off my cup and in the end no one was the wiser.

At the start of the recipe, raisins steep in hot water for about 20 minutes in order to plump them up.  I couldn't tell too much of a difference, but I'm sure it was time well spent.

Next time I make this, I think I'll use a scant 1/2 cup of raisins rather than a packed one.  This is only because I'm not too crazy about raisins to start with.  If you like them, then you'll love them in this.

Here was the hardest part, alright, alright, the second hardest to scooping out the persimmon flesh; baking the bread for an hour, then waiting 20 minutes for it to cool in the pan, and then waiting even longer for it to cool completely on a wire rack.

There is a slight possibility that I started slicing before it was completely cooled.

From the looks of it, I didn't do the bread any harm.

I'm positively in love with this bread.  I brought it to work two days in a row for my awesome assistant/co-teacher/confident/partner-in-goofiness/soul sister and she sang my praises and bought me coffee as payment for this bread's utter deliciousness.  

Coffee for persimmon bread?  I'd say that's a fair trade any day!*

*Especially since together they are the definition of wonderful.