Here in Portugal, much like the rest of the northern hemisphere, it's autumn. But it doesn't look like autumn yet. The leaves are still green from the summer weather and some days the temperature is in the 80's F, but every once in a while it feels a bit more like autumn with a crisp bite in the air that makes you want to pull on a sweater and drink a nice hot cup of coffee or tea.
I personally enjoy having a muffin or a slice of sweet quick bread like banana bread with my coffee/tea (Usually coffee. I'm from the Pacific Northwest, it's what we drink). We don't have a banana tree here, but we do have a persimmon tree. Actually two, and they are different varieties. Which means we have a lot of persimmons. Not just a few, but so many that I can't use them all because I can't come up with enough ways to use them.
I'm also not fond of persimmons on their own. They strike me as sickeningly sweet by themselves and don't have a tartness to cut it. But, like I said, we have so many that I don't want to let them go to waste and they are pretty good for you too despite the overly sweet factor. Which brings me back to quick breads.
During the summer I made my first zucchini bread (courgette) which gave me the idea to try and do the same with these persimmons. You can do so much with quick breads using herbs and spices that it seemed like a great way to use up the fruits and be a way to find a taste profile that would be more appealing.
The verdict? Cinnamon and nutmeg spices it just right to cut the sweet and give an aroma and flavor that tastes like autumn. Made healthy with the use of whole wheat flour and honey, this is a perfect bread to go with that cup of coffee on a cool morning.
Persimmon Bread
- 1 apple or pear, pureed. About 1/2 cup (120ml)
- 1 egg, white and yolk separated
- 2 egg whites
- 1 cup (250ml) honey
- 1 1/2 cup (350ml) mashed very ripe persimmons, skins removed
- 1 cup (250ml) whole wheat flour
- 1 cup (250ml) oats
- 1 teaspoon (5ml) baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon (2ml) baking powder
- 1 teaspoon (5ml) vanilla
- 1 tablespoon (15ml) cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons (10ml) nutmeg
- pinch of salt
In a bowl mix together pureed apple/pear, egg yolk, sugar, mashed persimmons, and vanilla. In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites with an electric mixer and set aside.
Whisk together flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Alternate adding the flour and whipped egg whites to the persimmon mixture, stirring well before each addition.
Pour batter into lightly oiled bread pan and bake at 350F (175C) 40-50 minutes for cake/bread or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Allow to cool approximately 15 minutes before removing from pan and another 10- 15 before serving.
Slice and serve warm with a bit of creamy butter spread lightly on top with your choice of hot coffee or tea.
Tip: To cleanly remove the persimmon flesh from the skin, cut the fruit in half from top (the green stem) to bottom. Take a spoon and scoop out the fruit and toss out the stem and skin.
12 comments:
Wow, this sounds delicious! Very different than puddings or desserts. YUM!
Thanks Noelle! I wonder how well it would work with egg substitutes to make it vegan :)
Noelle I love persimmons but never thought to add them to a bread. This looks delish and sooo healthy too!
My wife was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was three years old. As an adult she's gotten passably good at guessing carb content just looking at a portion of food. However, she favors foods that are packaged with nutrition information readily available.
This is one excuse, I use for not cooking. If I bake something delicious like this persimmon bread, I’m not going to have an authoritative way to help her know how many carbs it contains. If she guesses wrong or worse yet I tell her the wrong amount, then it makes managing her blood glucose level more difficult. Do you have any advice?
I want you to start cooking more! But I understand where you're coming from. Luckily I do know one way that can help. Nutrition data is a website where you can input all the ingredients and then choose how many servings a recipe will make. Then after you click "save and analyze", the next page will come up with the nutrition info (like the labels on the back of products from the store) per serving of the recipe. It's more detailed on the vitamins and minerals than what you'd find on most packages as well as letting you know what kind of fats and how much of each are in the recipe.
I also suggest using weighted measurements instead of volume for more accurate data, which will mean getting a small kitchen scale, but it's a great help for things like this and portion control.
As for this particular recipe, I did it for you so you can see what the outcome is here.Hopefully this will help make it easier for you to decide to cook and make it ok for your wife to eat some too!
personally i am not a big fan of the persimmon but if there loads hanging around, then I will eat it. this method is much better
Me either, Penny. They just are way too sweet with nothing to cut it. Hence the reason i decided to go with a bread and add a lot of cinnamon and nutmeg to help with that :D
This bread looks great, although I don't really like diospiros. But with the touch of cinnamon and the spices I'm sure it tastes as good as it looks!
Thanks Celia! It helps cut the sweetness, but I think that you could substitute a fruit you like more for the diospiros (I learned a new word in Portuguese today :D) such as raisins or maybe pureed pumpkin instead.
Good, I may try it with raisins then :)
So I just made this bread and realized after cooking it that I never added the oats because the written recipe does not tell you when to add it! Can you fix this please! We'll see how it tastes anyway...
Oh no! So sorry about that, it's now been fixed! Thank you for letting me know (the oats get mixed with the flour) :).
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