Persimmon Bourbon Pecan Cake

Persimmons are intriguing. They are exotic and ugly at the same time. Well, they are beautiful but before you can eat them or use them, they must sit and ripen until they look like they should be thrown to the pigs. Imagine my delight when I saw them on sale 50% off because they were becoming over-ripe. Perfect.

I am by no means an expert on persimmons and my very trusted source David Lebovitz explains the differences nicely in his blog. My bag of half price persimmons contained one hachiya and two fuyu. I just combined them for this recipe.

You can certainly substitute flours, oils and sugars in this recipe. Just a note, however, cane sugar is much sweeter than beet sugar. I would increase the sugar to 1 cup if you are using beet sugar. And if alcohol is not in your diet, substitute with apple juice.

I bought these little silicon baking cups a while back and have never used them. Today I tried them with this dough. No greasing the mould, just fill full and bake. They come out of the mould with a little twist. Worked great. However there wasn't as much carmelization leaving a paler exterior.

This cake is delicious the day it is made but leaving it sit for a day or two allows the flavours and the moistness of the persimmons to develop.

Persimmon Bourbon Pecan Cake

3/4 cup cane sugar
1/2 cup sunflower oil
1 cup persimmon puree
2 large free range eggs
1 teaspoon pure Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon Indonesian Korintje Cassia Cinnamon
 1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 freshly grated nutmeg
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups organic white flour
1/2 cup pecans, coarsely chopped

Measure sugar, oil and persimmon puree into a large mixing bowl. Beat with whip attachment until well blended. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat again. In another bowl blend the remainder of the ingredients. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix only until blended.

Pour into prepared baking pans. Bake at 350F until done. A toothpick inserted will come out clean when the cake is done. The length of time depends upon the size of the pan. A 10 inch pan will take about 30 minutes to bake.