The World Table

An interactive culinary compendium: recipes, lexicon and study

Missouri · Dessert

Missouri Persimmon Cake

  • Intermediate
  • 75 min
  • roughly 2 of 4 for cost
  • Vegetarian

warm-spiced · sweet-edged · rich Leads with warm spice humming through the middle, a sweet edge rounding the corners, on a rich, rounded finish.

Ingredients

  • 500g ripe wild persimmon pulp
  • 250g sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 120ml oil
  • 250g flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 100g pecans, chopped
  • 100g raisins

The skills inside

The wobble & the skewer: testing a bake

The words inside

Fuyu PersimmonHachiya Persimmon

Allergen screen

Found: gluten · egg · nuts

Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.

Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.

Method

  1. Sieve the very ripe persimmons for smooth pulp.
  2. Beat the pulp with the sugar, eggs, and oil.
  3. Whisk the flour, soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt and fold in, then the pecans and raisins.
  4. Pour into a buttered bundt or loaf pan.
  5. Bake at 175C for 55-65 min until a skewer comes clean. Cool before slicing. 65 min

How to tell it is going right

This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.

The wobble & the skewer: testing a bake 135 recipes

  • Tested at the true centre and the thickest point, not at the convenient edge: the edge is done long before the answer is.
  • The skewer comes out as the recipe describes, clean and dry or carrying the stated moist crumb, and it does the same on a second test in a different spot.
  • The wobble is read in motion: nudged, the centre moves as one set mass with a faint tremble, rather than a liquid ripple travelling across the surface.
  • The other signs agree with the test: risen and just shrinking from the sides, the top set and dry to a light touch with no wet gloss on it.
  • Pressed lightly at the middle it springs back and leaves no lasting dent.

Where it goes wrong It was judged on the clock and on how the edges looked, so a centre still liquid went to the rack and sank as it cooled, a dense wet seam under a perfectly browned top.

At the Table

The Pour
Sauternes
Also Right
Demi-sec Champagne
From the Taps
Belgian tripel
Zero-Proof
Jasmine tea

The sweetness rule is absolute: the pour must be sweeter than the plate, and acid keeps it from cloying.

Saved on this device and kept across visits: export from My Menu to move them.

Film school

This dish, cooked on camera Search films of Missouri Persimmon Cake Search YouTube: J. Kenji López-Alt on Missouri Persimmon Cake A YouTube search for J. Kenji López-Alt and this dish. No affiliation.