American Persimmon Experiments

Authored by Jodi Roth, Silver creek Nursery

Hi there! I’m writing this blog post quickly to provide additional details for any folks who are inspired to try out their own version of Candied American Persimmons or want to hear more about my small experiment with “hoshigaki” style dried American Persimmons.

Candied American Persimmons

For candied American Persimmons, I chose out the most firm of my persimmon harvest. For reference, my persimmons were harvested in late November after a few freezes, and many were quite soft. I chose the firmest ones because I knew they would be easiest to slice and remove seeds from, plus a firm persimmon is the only way one can simmer the fruit pieces in sugar syrup without them all falling apart. Even with choosing firm persimmons, I had many pieces that ended up being halves or quarters of rounds due to the large seed size pulling apart the round slice when I removed them.

I found it easiest to use a really sharp paring knife to slice each persimmon in thirds (perpendicular to the stem), cutting between seeds and pushing the knife tip into the center of the persimmon as I went around the fruit. Then I carefully pulled the slice open and slit the pod-type layer of flesh around each seed so that I could pop them out. This was the part that quite frequently pulled the whole slice apart.

Once I had enough pieces of flesh, I layered them in sugar in a container overnight because I didn’t want to stay up late enough to complete the candy-ing process (you wouldn’t need to do this, but it did work fine to remove them the next day and I just dumped the additional wet sugar into my syrup mixture at the same time that I added the fruit). I set up my induction burner and boiled water, reduced to a simmer, added sugar (ratios from a candied orange recipe which I forgot to save to link to here, but a quick online search will sort you out for making this part) and allowed it to dissolve. Once the sugar was dissolved I added the fruit and proceeded to simmer for 2-4 hours, again following the candied orange recipe.

When my persimmon pieces were saturated and beginning to look a little translucent I took them out and laid them onto a cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet to catch the dripping syrup and allowed them to dry for 24 hours.

Once dried for 24 hours, I rolled in sugar to get the coating like this + ended up putting them in the oven set at 170⁰F for 40 minutes with the fan running. If you want to skip that you definitely can. You may find you want to allow them to air dry for another 24 hours or just move on to chocolate dipping.

For the dipping, I created a double boiler with a small stainless steel bowl over a small saucepan of water and melted semi-sweet chocolate chips. After dipping in chocolate, I added a little sprinkle of sea salt. My salt was added while the chocolate was still quite warm and it seems to have dissolved in almost entirely, so if you want the salt visible, consider allowing the chocolate to cool for 5-10 minutes before salting.

The end result of my candied persimmons experiment is a treat that is best consumed in small amounts, piece at a time or maybe even half a piece at a time, because simmering them in hot liquified sugar for hours did not remove the tannins. Without the chocolate dip, most of the pieces were quite puckery! Once the pieces had sat to dry and been rolled in more sugar + chocolate was dipped on, they became more of a foodie-level treat, but still a one-at-a-time type of eat that is more of a "share with friends for the experience of it". To that end, staff notes included: "Neat to try, but wouldn't seek it out," and "Dry mouth once the chocolate dissolves," and finally, "tart and tasty!"

 “Hoshigaki”-style Dried American Persimmons

For these, my inspiration was simply experimenting because several blog posts I read while researching persimmon recipes mentioned that Hoshigaki are made with astringent persimmons, typically the Hachiya variety. Because American Persimmons are also astringent, I figured this might work and decided to try drying 6 of my American Persimmons in a similar style.

I proceeded to carefully trim off the little sepals and around the stem as suggested in other blog posts and then peeled the skin off of my little American Persimmons. Again, I chose firm persimmons for this because otherwise they’d end up as mush.

I did not remove the seeds, so the final dried persimmons still had them and they did have to be eaten around when we finally sampled them! I stuck a bamboo skewer through them and hung it up using some (clean, unused) replacement shoelaces among my hanging plants near my woodstove. This was a deviation from the outdoor method used for real Hoshigaki, but I didn’t think the outdoor weather would suit for drying these with snow and freezing rain in our forecast, nor did I think the persimmons would escape the many birds visiting our birdfeeders!

I spritzed the hanging American Persimmons with a 50% alcohol upon hanging them up and again 3 more times over the two weeks they hung there. I massaged them maybe twice - they are so small it seemed a bit redundant, and the seeds kindof felt pokey so I didn’t want to mess up the leathery outer layer that developed as they dried. Running the woodstove really helped dry them out nicely, and finally I removed them from the skewer and stored them in a small container for another week or so until we planned a staff-tasting time!

If you are interested in trying the American Persimmon Dumplings which are the final first-place contestant of the three American Persimmon experiments I did, the recipe for them is covered in its own blog post.

~Jodi