Persimmon Pudding Recipe

This Persimmon Pudding is an old fashioned recipe made with fresh persimmons and a whiff of spice.

Serve it with Lemon Curd, recipe below.

This is a delicious, rare treat, indeed and can be prepared throughout the year, if you have access to canned or frozen persimmon pulp.

However, it is usually made in the fall with fresh home grown fruit from your back yard, or a neighbor's yard.

Persimmons fresh from the tree should only be used after the first frost of Fall.

The first frost softens the persimmon's pulp taking away the bitterness of the fruit.

Persimmons are sometimes hard to find at the grocers store.

Farmer's markets and roadside fruit stands, usually have this fruit in season, which is after the first frost in late fall.

Some grocery stores carry them.

Once you locate a good source, purchase extra persimmons.

Prepare the pulp by removing the peel and seeds, and freeze it for later use.

You can plant a tree (young seedling) from your local or mail order nursery and have your own home grown supply in 2-3 years or more, depending on the variety of tree you choose.

Make sure the variety is adaptable to your locality.

Persimmon Pudding

• 1/2 stick butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups persimmon pulp
• 2 cups cake flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 cup buttermilk
  

Beat together sugar, butter, and eggs, until smooth.

Sift together flour, soda, salt, and nutmeg.

Add flour and buttermilk alternately starting and ending with flour.

Pour into a greased 9" x 13" baking pan and bake in preheated oven 350F. for 1 hour or until knife inserted into pudding comes out clean.

Cool in pan.

Cut into squares. Lift out of pan with a spatula.

Serve plain, with the Lemon Curd mentioned above or topped with Homemade Whipped Cream.

Lemon Curd Recipe

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• juice of 2 lemons
• zest of 2 lemons*
  

In mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until thoroughly blended.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Stir in grated lemon zest and juice.

Pour into top of a double boiler and cook stirring constantly, until thickened to the consistency of thick gravy.

Remove from heat and cool.

It will thicken more as it cools.

*Zest is the yellow outer most part of the rind of citrus fruit, not the white, pithy part.

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