Processing Wild Persimmons

Other than pumpkin-spice flavored everything, the one thing that lets me know that fall is just around the corner is the ripening of the wild persimmons on our tree.  When we first bought the property twenty four years ago, there were two wild persimmon trees, but one succumbed.  The remaining tree produces hundreds of little golf ball-sized persimmons at this time every year.  They turn orange and fall to the ground and we go out and pick them up.

They are sticky, sweet and the birds love them.  My neighbor told me that prior to us moving here the raccoons loved them, too!  They would climb up in the tree and eat until they were full.  We haven't seen raccoons in a long time.  Each day we go out to the base of the tree and pick up the persimmons that have fallen.  

We take them in and wash them up.  They are very soft.  Some of them have broken as they hit the ground.  To be honest with you, most people would just let the birds eat them.  I'll show you why in a minute.  Each persimmon has a large number of big seeds in them.

We have a food mill that we sit on top of an 8 cup Pyrex measuring bowl.  We feed the persimmons into the food mill and crank.  The persimmon flesh is pushed through the holes in the mill and the seeds stay on top.

We spoon out the seeds and put them in a bowl.  They'll be fed to the animals or go in the compost pile.  Can you see what I mean about the seeds?  You get more seeds from each persimmon than you do edible fruit.

But that's okay.  The fruit we get is delicious!

We have a recipe for a persimmon Bundt cake that we have enjoyed for years.  We even have altered it to make a chocolate persimmon cake.  When it comes out of the oven, the fragrance fills the kitchen and it is so good to eat it while it is still warm.  Each recipe calls for a cup and a half of persimmon.

So we package the processed persimmons in pint-sized freezer bags with 1 and 1/2 cups of persimmon in each bag and then freeze them in stacks.  That way we can look at the stack in the freezer and inventory and know how many cakes we'll be eating!

So far we have 8 cakes in the freezer with plenty more persimmons left to fall.  It looks like it will be a good year.  That's a good thing because with the drought last year, we didn't pick any, so we need to build our inventory back up.