If a persimmon cookie and a piece of taffy had a love child, you’d get something close to persimmon candy. It’s a chewy, sweet, rich caramel. It’s a delicious gluten free treat and like nothing else you’ve had before!
This recipe works best with wild persimmons found in the Midwest. If you’re lucky enough to have a persimmon tree or know someone who does, pick the fruit after the first frost.
They’re best after they’ve just fallen off the tree (before the raccoons find them!) or just barely hanging on to their branch.
The fruits are small, squishy, and have large seeds. I’m not going to lie: extracting the pulp is a pain in the butt.
I’ve tried several methods. All (except one) have left me cursing up a blue storm. I’ve tried:
boiling them
pressing them through a colander
microwaving them (don’t do this, they explode)
mashing them through a fine sieve
putting them through a food mill
This past fall I finally decided to take a simple straight forward approach and it worked beautifully.
How to get the most pulp from your persimmons
I’m rolling my eyes at myself as I’m writing this, because I can’t believe I didn’t do this the first time. However, I was under the assumption that heat and pressure would be a far superior way to go. I was wrong. Try this with your next batch of persimmons:
Gently wash the fruit and remove the top leaves and stem.
Pry fruit open with your fingers and remove seeds.
Use remaining pulp and skin.
This only works with overly ripe super soft wild American persimmons, not the Japanese varieties found in the grocery store. That’s a bummer, but it’s also why persimmon candy and cookies are such a treat!
How to make persimmon candy
This recipe makes one 1 1/2 pound log of persimmon candy.
Put 2 cups sugar, 1 cup milk, and 1 tablespoon unsalted butter into a saucepan and bring to a boil.
Cook syrup until it reaches the soft ball stage* (240F). If you want a harder candy bring the temperature up to the hard ball stage 250-265F.
Add persimmon pulp (1/2 cup) and cook until temperature reaches 240F again.
Turn off heat and add vanilla (2 teaspoons), 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Beat until mixture is slightly warm.
Spoon caramel into small silicone candy molds and refrigerate or freeze for 1/2 an hour.
How do I know my candy has reached the soft ball stage if I don’t have a thermometer?
Another way to know if your candy has reached 236F if you don’t have a thermometer, is to carefully take a piece of it and drop it into cold water. If it forms a soft ball when touched, you’re there!
Persimmon Candy Variations
Stir in a cup of chopped toasted pecans or walnuts at the very end before putting into candy molds.
Persimmon Cookie Recipe
Here’s my favorite persimmon cookie recipe I got from my friend, Deb H. who got it from her fiancé. It might be his mother’s or grandmother’s recipe. Either way, it’s pure persimmon bliss!
A special thank you to my friend, Amanda, for letting me raid her trees this year.
Amanda, her daughter Leah, and I climbed her golf cart and picked the last remaining persimmons on her trees. In return, I promised them a batch of persimmon candy and a batch of cookies.
4.5 from 4 votes
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Persimmon Candy
Rich, tangy, sweet with deep notes of cinnamon – this chewy candy is a treat made with wild persimmons found in the Midwest.
The fruit is edible, but it is not ripe until the skin is wrinkled. Ripe persimmons are said to taste a great deal like dates. They are used to make cakes, puddings and beverages. Native Americans used the fruits to make bread, and also dried them.
The seeds and stem can be removed and the pulp strained through a strainer, pushing the pulp through with a rubber spatula. A food mill will make faster work of this if you have a large persimmon harvest. Or you can put the fruit with the peel in a blender or food processor and process until smooth.
The most common method of preserving astringent and non-astringent persimmons is to dry them. Dehydrating astringent persimmons also removes the astringency. To dry persimmons in an electric food dehydrator, select firm persimmons and wash them under running water, patting them dry with a paper towel.
And there's no better wild edible to give you tricks and treats than the persimmon. Pick a ripe one off the tree and they are very sweet. But pluck an unripe one, and it will give you wicked cotton mouth. Here's everything you need to know about this wrinkly yet super-sweet native fruit.
Many recipe books suggest making a persimmon bread similar to a banana bread, or a cooked persimmon pudding. You can try these if you like, but we encourage you to experiment first with raw preparations that showcase the lovely uniqueness of these autumn treasures.
Blessed with a delectable flavour – a subtle sugary honey-like taste and immense nutrition, persimmons are eaten fresh, in the dried form, used in cooking curries, sauces, fruit jams, incorporated into salads, refreshing drinks of juices, smoothies, milkshakes and added to desserts like pies, puddings, cakes.
When persimmons are beaten to a pulp, tannins form complexes with carbohydrates, causing the pulp to stiffen to a gel-like consistency. When baking soda is added, a reaction with the moist and slightly acidic persimmon creates carbon dioxide (CO2), which also plays a role in encouraging the pulp to thicken.
Meet the American persimmon, botanical name Diospyros virginiana, or “food of the gods,” and the largest berry in the world. The flavor of these silver dollar-sized fruits is syrupy-sweet and complex, with a thick, jammy texture, almost as if the flesh inside had been concentrated into a caramel.
The persimmon fruit, which usually ripens in fall, is often used in jams and baked goods. The fruit pulp can be turned into molasses, and the seeds can be turned into a peanut-like oil or roasted and used as a coffee substitute. Dried leaves make a great tea high in vitamin C.
When Are American Persimmons Ripe? American persimmons ripen in early fall, between September and October in most parts of the country. The fruit takes on a deep orange-yellow hue and the skin becomes almost translucent when fully ripe.
Depending on the persimmon variety, flowers can take up to five years to emerge. It takes even longer for trees to bear fruit, often up to 10 years for American Persimmon trees.
Meet the American persimmon, botanical name Diospyros virginiana, or “food of the gods,” and the largest berry in the world. The flavor of these silver dollar-sized fruits is syrupy-sweet and complex, with a thick, jammy texture, almost as if the flesh inside had been concentrated into a caramel.
When fully ripe, American persimmon is very sweet with a soft grainy texture similar to fresh dates. But instead of a date flavor, it has a delicious persimmon flavor. The fruits are round, sized between one and two inches diameter, with one or more seeds in the middle. The seeds are large, and resemble pumpkin seeds.
Some bear edible fruit, while others do not. The cultivars that contain unedible fruit are considered astringent and non-astringent varieties turn from green to orange with maturity. Here are a few cultivar selections to know: 'Fuyu': An astringent variety available late in the season.
Diospyros virginiana is a persimmon species commonly called the American persimmon, common persimmon, eastern persimmon, simmon, possumwood, possum apples, or sugar plum. It ranges from southern Connecticut to Florida, and west to Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Iowa.
Introduction: My name is Francesca Jacobs Ret, I am a innocent, super, beautiful, charming, lucky, gentle, clever person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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