Paleo American Persimmon Cake

Monica brought me persimmons from a neighbor's tree. How sweet is that?  I'd fed her a couple of paleo desserts lately and I'm glad I did. Monica knew I was wishing for some to experiment with...

You see, when I was little, I remember someone giving my mom some American Persimmons (although we called them Kentucky Persimmons) and she made a persimmon bread. It was so good that it stayed in my memory all these years!  But, now I know why my mom only made one.... they are a lot of trouble. But, my cake was so good, I might make it again soon!

So, we don't need to leave all the persimmons for the deer, raccoons, etc. We should gather them from the ground or shake the tree because they need to be VERY RIPE. If they aren't VERY RIPS, they will pucker your mouth for a long time, so don't be going for any firm ones. Even one of these in your batch can ruin all your work!

I went through what Monica brought me.

These were the ones that were great. They are puckery-ripe and heavy and full and mushy and almost too far gone. Their skin is tissue paper thin. They are blush pink and some places are almost blue-ish.

These are too far gone. They are about to                   These are astringent and awful. They are not ripe,

 ferment.                                                                      although they look the prettiest.



I found a really antique recipe for Persimmon Pudding, so I decided to try to "Paleo-ize" it and it turned out just amazing!  Here's what I did:

I don't have one of those hand-crank things like you would make sausage with, so I improvised. I put my strainer over the top of my Pampered Chef bowl and got busy.

This was messy and time-consuming. (but the came was worth it!) I peeled each little persimmon, taking the tissue paper thin skin off and then dropping them into the strainer. When I had a few peeled, I just smashed them with my hand against the strainer, and then got the persimmon pulp off on the outside of the strainer with a little spatula. It was sticky work and took a while to get 3/4 cup.

But, isn't it beautiful? Nothing else tastes like it in the whole world, and I think it puts Asian persimmons to shame.

I added the following wet ingredients to this 3/4 cup of persimmon pulp:

1/2 cup raw honey (warmed)
1  1/2 cups organic coconut milk (from a can) (If you REALLY want a decadent cake you could substitute Snowville Creamery Heavy Whipping Cream...)
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 eggs

I stirred this up and set it aside.
In a small bowl I mixed up the dry ingredients:

2/3 cup almond flour
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt

I mixed the dry into the wet ingredients. It looked like this:

I rubbed coconut oil on a square glass baking dish and poured the batter into the prepared dish. Then, I placed it in a 450 degree oven for 15 minutes.  Then, I turned the oven down to 400 degrees and timed it for 25 more minutes. It set up and got nice and brown on top. My house smelled better than words can describe.... and that cake went faster than the eye can see!