Persimmon loaf cake, for the ones going soft

There’s a moment in every box of persimmons when several pieces give at the same time. They
aren’t bad — they’re at spoon stage — but there are more of them than anyone can eat in two
days.

This cake is the answer. A very ripe persimmon is sweet, creamy and full of
water, which is exactly what sugar and fat contribute to a cake. So you can leave out
almost both of them.

Ingredients

• 400 g very ripe persimmon pulp (about 3 persimmons)
• 3 eggs
• 200 g plain flour
• 80 ml mild olive oil
• 1 sachet baking powder (16 g)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• The zest of 1 orange or 1 lemon
• A pinch of salt
• 80 g walnuts, optional
• 2 tablespoons orange blossom honey, if the persimmon isn’t very sweet

No sugar on the list, and that isn’t an oversight: a properly ripe persimmon has sugar to spare.
If the pulp tastes bland when you try it, then yes — the two spoonfuls of honey.

How it’s made

1. Prepare the pulp. Halve the persimmons and scoop it out with a spoon, leaving the skin.
   Mash it with a fork: there’s no need to blend it, a few lumps suit it.
2. Heat the oven to 175 degrees, top and bottom, and line a loaf tin with paper.
3. Beat the eggs with the pinch of salt until they froth a little, a couple of minutes.
   It’s the only thing that’s going to put air into the batter, so don’t get it over with in ten
   seconds.
4. Add the oil in a thread, still beating, then the persimmon pulp, the cinnamon and the
   zest.
5. Fold in the flour with the baking powder, sifted, with a spatula and a folding
   motion. The moment there’s no dry flour visible, stop: keep beating and the cake comes out
   rubbery.
6. Add the walnuts chopped, if you’re using them, tossed first in a spoonful of the flour
   so they don’t sink to the bottom.
7. Bake for 45 minutes in the middle of the oven. From minute 40, the skewer test: it has to
   come out clean or with a moist crumb, not with batter.
8. Let it cool in the tin for ten minutes and then on a rack. Hot, it breaks: this is a very
   moist cake and it needs to settle.

The persimmon has to be overripe

It’s the one condition that allows no shortcut. A firm persimmon — the kind eaten in bites like
an apple — won’t do: it has little free sugar and a texture that doesn’t break down, so the cake
comes out bland and full of lumps.

The one you want here is at spoon stage: it gives under a finger, the skin looks
translucent and the flesh is almost jellied. If yours are firm and you want to make the cake anyway,
put them in a paper bag with an apple and in two or three days you’ll have them. It’s explained in
how to keep persimmons.

And it isn’t astringent

Worth saying, because it frightens anyone who remembers the persimmons of years ago: the Persimon
persimmon has no astringency, firm or soft. Soft or not, it doesn’t leave your
mouth dry. The difference from the old one is in
what a Persimon persimmon is.

If you have far too many

The persimmon season runs from October to December and a box is 15 kilos, so the problem isn’t
having one ripe: it’s having fifteen.

• Freeze the pulp. Scooped out, in jars or an ice-cube tray, it keeps six months.
  It goes straight into this cake in January.
• Make double the batter and freeze a whole cake, baked and wrapped: three
  months.
• And keep them in the fridge in the meantime, which holds off the softening for
  a fortnight.

Variations

• With ground almonds replacing 50 g of the flour: moister and with more
  body.
• With dark chocolate chopped in, which goes surprisingly well with
  persimmon.
• With mandarin zest in season, which overlaps with the persimmon from October to
  December.
• Gluten free, swapping the flour for a bread-making blend: it holds up well
  because the fruit supplies the moisture.
• As muffins, dividing the batter between cases and dropping the oven time to 25
  minutes.

How many persimmons make 400 grams

A medium persimmon weighs between 200 and 250 grams with the skin, and almost
all of it is usable: there’s no stone and no core to remove, just the skin and the stalk. Three ripe
pieces get you well past the 400 grams the batter asks for.

If you end up with a little extra, don’t throw it away and don’t tip it all into the cake: the
ratio of fruit to flour is what decides whether the crumb sets. The surplus goes into a jar and into
the freezer for next time.

And the no-oven version: roast persimmon

If you don’t feel like baking, there’s a two-minute option: persimmons cut in half, a
thread of orange blossom honey, cinnamon and a few walnuts, into the oven at 190 degrees
for 15 minutes. They’re eaten warm, with a spoon, and with a little fresh cheese alongside they make
a complete seasonal pudding.

For that version firm persimmons do work, and in fact work better: they stand up to the oven
without collapsing and come out warm outside and creamy in the middle.

The persimmon we use

The box of persimmons is 15 kilos of Rojo Brillante
picked in Albalat de la Ribera — the Ribera del Xúquer is where practically all of Spain’s persimmon
is grown — and it leaves for your home within 24 or 48 hours.

It’s only in the catalogue from October to December: the
shortest season of the year, some ten or twelve weeks. What’s sold the rest of the year comes out of
cold storage or from the other hemisphere, and that’s covered in
the fruit calendar.