Persimmon Bread
Yield: 3 loaves
“Every fall, we would make persimmon bread because we had a persimmon tree in our backyard in Brooklyn. It was my mother’s recipe, and she was one of the few people I knew who cooked with persimmons on the east coast,” said Ralph Scamardella, Chef of TAO Downtown, TAO Uptown, Arlington Club and LAVO Italian Restaurant.
INGREDIENTS
1 cup Persimmon pulp
2 tsp Baking soda
3 cups White sugar
1 cup Vegetable oil
4 Eggs
1 ½ tsp Ground cinnamon
½ tsp Ground nutmeg
1 ½ tsp Salt
2/3 cup Water
3 cups All-purpose flour
1 cup Chopped walnuts
1 cup White raisins, soaked and drained
1 cup Chopped ripe bananas
1 cap Vanilla extract
METHOD
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C)
- Grease three 6×3 inch loaf pans
- In a small bowl, stir together the persimmon pulp and baking soda, let stand 5 minutes to thicken the pulp
- In a medium bowl, combine sugar, oil, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt, blend until smooth
- Mix in persimmon pulp and water alternately with flour
- Fold in nuts
- Divide batter into the prepared pans, filling each pan 2/3 full
- Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean
- Cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely
