I’ve been meaning to post this recipe for months. Instead, I took a much needed break from screens, blogs, newsletters and social media. Here it is at last, a recipe with my favorite winter fruit–now that winter is almost over in this exceptionally warm year in the eastern French Pyrenees.

Persimmons are called kaki in French. They’re cheap (or free) here, where most of my neighbors don’t know what to do with them. Luckily my mama’s mama specialized in this winter fruit. Big Mama (as we called her) new where are all the wild persimmon trees grew near her home in North Carolina. They’re hard to miss, bright orange, like small pumpkins, hanging exposed from leafless tree limbs. Clara points them out as we walk by, repeating, “ball, ball, ball,” because anything round is a ball to her.

Wild Persimmons

 

Big Mama’s Persimmon Pudding

2 cups persimmon pulp

1 3/4 cups sugar (I use less)

2 cups flour

3 eggs (always best if from a neighbor’s chickens)

1/2 tsp baking soda (bicarbonate de soude in French)

1 tsp vanilla

3Tbs melted butter

pinch salt

1 1/2 cups milk

Mix pulp and eggs together. Mix flour, sugar and dry ingredients. Slowly add milk to dry ingredients, alternating with pulp mixture.

Bake 300 F for one hour

Persimmon Pudding Ingredients

 

Baked Persimmon Pudding