Persimmon Cookies

D came home with  persimmons from a job and with my sister visiting from Oregon and an invite to see presentations by some of my former students, I thought it was a great time to put the persimmons to use.  

I found YouTube videos which talked about how to prep the persimmons and after browsing through a few cookie recipes, I went for it.  

Here is what you will need for the cookies:
1/2 stick of butter
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg 
puree of 2-3 persimmons
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt 
2 cups of flour
1/2 cup oatmeal, ground in blender 

Here is what you will need for the frosting:
1/3 stick of butter
1/4 cube of cream cheese 
1/2 tsp vanilla 
2 tbsp milk or half & half
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Prepping the persimmons:

According to my YouTube education these are fuyu (pronounced foo-you) persimmons, also called Japanese persimmons, and are in season between October and February.

After I rinsed the persimmons I turned them upside down and cut them in half, but not all the way through, then turned them right side up and tore off the flowery top - sounds mean but it has to be done. 

One of the persimmons was so ripe that I just used a spoon to scoop out the inside, but the rest of them I cut into slices then removed the inside from the peel.  

Also, I ate some persimmon chunks because...yum.  

I blended the persimmon chunks until they were about the consistency of apricot jam, that fuyu goo is like sweet, mushy gold I tell ya.  

Next I preheated the oven to 350 and then mixed the butter and sugars. 

Then I added the baking soda to the persimmon puree and let it sit while I mixed the dry ingredients.  

This stepped turned the puree into a jello like substance.  

Then I added the egg and puree to the butter and sugar mix, looks a little gross. 

Since this was my first time making this recipe I didn't add any spices to the dry ingredients so I could incrementally add them at the end. So at this point I added the flour and salt mix to the egg and puree goo.  

After a little taste of the batter I decided to add the spices - I went light (relative to the recipe posted here) on the ginger and cinnamon and a little heavier on the cloves.

This is what the batter looked like for me and also when I decided to add the ground up oatmeal (bass) to the cookies to make sure they were thick.  

That ground up oatmeal packs a big punch.  

I dropped the cookies onto the baking sheets and ended up with about two dozen.

My oven is a little odd so I baked the tray of cookies on the top rack for 10 minutes and the tray on the bottom for 11 minutes.  

While they were cooling I tossed the butter and cream cheese in a bowl and microwaved it until it was soft.  Then I mixed it along with the vanilla and milk until it was smooth, lastly I incrementally added the powdered sugar until the texture was no longer runny.

Here they are, yeah I ate one!  

I was a little nervous to have my sister be the first taste tester (she used to be a sweets baker so her standards are high!) but I brewed some coffee, woke her up and we got to sip on some beans and enjoy some warm cookies for breakfast together.  The first thing she said about the cookies was "they taste like Christmas", yay tastes like victory to me!  

After breakfast I went to campus with the rest of the batch of cookies to watch the presentations, my heart was so full of pride and joy watching the students.  After the presentations I got to quickly catch up with them and share the cookies, they all seemed to love them (probably can't trust the taste of starving college students) but it sure was amazing to see all of them!  

Today I made another batch of cookies to give to some of our neighbors for Christmas. 

A few notes: 
- Most of the recipes I saw added nuts, raisins and other unholiness to the cookies.  No.Thank.You.
- The recipes showed pretty flat cookies, but I'm all about that bass so I tweaked the recipe to make mine big and puffy, my "secret" (if you can call it that) is to add oatmeal that has been blended in the blender, it gives the cookies a quality that people can't quite put their finger on. 
- I added a cream cheese frosting glaze to these, again if that isn't your thing, just leave it out.
- A few of the recipes I saw sprinkled powdered sugar on top instead of doing a frosting glaze.

I feel so incredibly blessed to have had my sister here visiting for the week, students to be proud of and neighbors to bake for, this has always been my favorite part of the year, and this year, I am overjoyed that I get to spend it with so many wonderful people. 

I hope you all are enjoying this season, especially the moments spent with the ones you love the most! 
Merry Christmas!
~D & H