Persimmon Pudding from the Backyard

Ah, the adventures of cooking!  Cooking is officially messy, time consuming and exhausting.  However, it's also fun, rewarding and surprisingly educational at (most) times.

Last week I decided to start this adventure off with a simple  recipe.  I've become proficient with making banana bread over the last couple years; I've even gone as far as adjusting the recipe and adding my own personal flourishes (my now office famous Blueberry Chocolate Chip Banana Bread is a personal favorite of many co-workers).  How hard could a pudding be?

I happen to have a persimmon tree in my backyard.  The fruit is so ripe that the persimmons are literally falling from the sky and splatting on the ground.  Winston (my four-legged kitchen helper) has been thoroughly enjoying licking the remains of splatted fruit.  I managed to pick the lowest hanging fruit and headed back into the kitchen for some cooking.

Lesson #1 - Persimmon pudding is not "pudding."  Growing up in the age of Bill Crosby and J-E-L-L-O! I was thinking my pudding was going to creamy.  Granted, it was a pudding at one point:

But the thing about old fashioned puddings is that they are just that, an old fashioned pudding.  The final product ended up being more of a soft mix between a bread and a cake.  Upon further research (after the fact) a traditional pudding should be a soft cake-like bread with a gooey middle.  

Lesson 2:  Read the entire recipe card before starting.  Make sure you have enough time for prep AND cooking.  Due to poor timing on my part, I had to refrigerate the pudding overnight, thus stiffening it up.  I may have also incorrectly steamed the pudding (my foil tent was completely sealed, hence much of the steam must have gotten out).

Lesson 3:  Know how to do ALL the steps in the recipe.  Thank goodness we live in a digital, internet age.  Google has quickly become my favorite kitchen tool.  

Lesson 4:  Even if it doesn't look pretty, if it smells good, people will it eat.  While the final product wasn't exactly a picture perfect presentation, I was assured by my guinea pigs -my gracious coworkers - that it was extremely yummy and satisfying.  

Lesson 5:  Wait until after you get over a cold to cook.  Then you can actually taste the fruits of your labor!  However,  I've been assured by the guinea pigs that the pudding was delicious.  So delicious in fact that it lasted exactly 30 minutes from the time I announced the dish was in the kitchen to when the last crumb (literally!) was eaten.  It disappeared so quickly, that I didn't even get a photo of the finished pudding!

I've frozen a number of persimmons, and might just attempt this recipe later this summer.  Next on the list:  dinner rolls.