PERSIMMON SPICE BREAD

Persimmon Spice Bread image

At my farmers' market one vendor was selling over-ripe fuyu persimmons for $1 a pound and I bought a few pounds just to make purée, which I used for dense, sweet quick breads like this one and for muffins. According to Deborah Madison, persimmons contain enzymes that will react with the flour and prevent the bread from having a nice crumb, so you must first neutralize them by stirring baking soda into the purée. This also causes the purée to become gelatinous, but the gelatinous mash is easy to break up with a whisk and will dissolve when added to the batter. Freeze any leftover purée.

Provided by Martha Rose Shulman

Categories dessert

Time 1h30m

Yield 1 9x5-inch loaf (12 slices)

Number Of Ingredients 17

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Ingredients

2 to 3 ripe or over-ripe persimmons (enough for 1 cup purée)
10 grams (2 teaspoons) baking soda
140 grams (approximately 1 cup) whole wheat flour
70 grams (approximately 1/2 cup) unbleached all-purpose flour
75 grams (approximately 3/4 cup) almond powder (also known as almond flour)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
100 grams (approximately 1/2 cup) raw brown sugar or tightly packed light brown sugar
75 grams (1/3 cup) melted unsalted butter, grape seed oil or canola oil
1/3 cup plain low-fat yogurt or buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Steps:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees with a rack in the middle. Butter or oil a loaf pan and line with parchment. Oil the parchment. Cut the persimmons in half along the equator, remove any visible seeds and scoop out the pulp, which should be nice and soft. Purée with a hand blender or in a food processor fitted with the steel blade and measure out 1 heaped cup (260 grams). Freeze the remaining pulp.
Stir 1 teaspoon of the baking soda into the persimmon pulp and set aside. It will stiffen into a gelatinous mass but don't worry about it. Sift together the flours, remaining baking soda, spices, and salt.
In a standing mixer fitted with the whip, or with a hand beater or whisk, beat together the eggs and sugar until thick and they ribbon when lifted with a spatula, 5 to 8 minutes. Beat in the melted butter or oil, the yogurt, persimmon purée, and vanilla and beat until the persimmon purée has blended into the mixture.
At low speed, beat in the flour in 3 additions. Fold in the raisins and the optional nuts. Scrape into the loaf pan and bake 50 to 60 minutes, until the bread is firm and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from the oven, remove from the pan and allow to cool on a rack.

Nutrition Facts : @context http, Calories 217, UnsaturatedFat 2 grams, Carbohydrate 30 grams, Fat 10 grams, Fiber 2 grams, Protein 5 grams, SaturatedFat 4 grams, Sodium 249 milligrams, Sugar 13 grams, TransFat 0 grams