Week 47: Persimmon Cookies

So this week’s recipe was something that fell onto my lap. The COO at my work had a large bag of persimmons, and he was giving them out to everyone. I took a few to begin with, but then realized I could make cookies with them, so I went and got some more.

To make these cookies, you need to puree the persimmons. To do that, you need to cut them open (I cut them into fours), remove the center (like an apple), and scoop the inside of the good stuff. Then you have to run it into a blender for a while to get that sweet puree texture we desire for the cookie recipe.

Once it’s pureed, you need to mix 2 persimmons worth of puree with some baking soda in a small bowl. I personally used 3 persimmons worth because 2 didn’t seem like enough. Then you mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Once those sets of ingredients are ready, you need to mix one stick of butter (at room temperature) with a cup of white sugar.

Then you get to add the egg and the puree mixed with the baking soda.

Once those are mixed together, then you need to pour in the dry ingredients. What I do is use a sheet of parchment paper and slowly add it to the stand mixer.

After the flour mix is added, I threw in some craisins and some chopped walnuts, and let the mixer do its thing.

Once everything is combined, you get a nice spiffy looking dough.

Unfortunately, this recipe calls for “teaspooonfuls” of dough onto the greased cookie sheet. That meant I needed to use my least favorite kitchen utensil: the Oxo Cookie Scoop 1Tbsp version. That thing sucks, and I need to find a better version.

For greasing the cookie sheets, I just took some unsalted butter and wiped it on the cookie sheets. Then I added the dough little by little. The cookies were baked for 18 minutes on an aluminum cookie sheet.

Needless to say, this was a favorite among my coworkers, and it’s definitely a keeper.

Oh great, I just got more persimmons from work…

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe persimmons, pureed
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups all-purpose flour 
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground cloves
• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 egg 
• 1 cup white sugar
• ½ cup butter
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
2. Dissolve baking soda in persimmon pulp and set aside.
3. Sift flour, spices and salt together, set aside.
4. Cream together butter or margarine and sugar until fluffy, beat in egg and persimmon. Stir in dry ingredients. Stir in nuts and raisins.
5. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes.

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