Jenn, who blogs over at Cultivating Me, texted me last weekend to see if I had any ideas for using Hachiya persimmons. I’d actually never had a persimmon before. Like never, ever. I knew there was more than one kind of persimmon, the two most common are hachiya and fuyu.
But as luck would have it, they just happened to be on sale at my local Italian market that very same week. So I picked some up. I don’t know that I’d recommend eating them plain. 
Eating them makes your mouth feel funny. The astringents in the hachiya actually make your mouth feel furry when you eat one.
Then she suggested that you could bake with them. Now baking I can do! I decided to puree the persimmons and use them in a bundt cake with oatmeal flour to keep everything moist. Besides pureeing, this recipe basically has only two steps. The best part is that a bundt cake looks fancy all on it’s own so you don’t need to frost it, which means less work and less sugar.
Hachiya Persimmon Bundt Cake
1 cup flour
1 cup oatmeal flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon grated fresh nutmeg
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 2/3 cup hachiya persimmon puree
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup spicebox whisky
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 10-cup bundt cake pan.
In a medium bowl whisk together all of the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together all wet ingredients. Slowly mix dry into wet until all ingredients are incorporated. Scrape into greased bundt pan and bake for about 40 minutes. Use a toothpick to test for doneness. Cool in pan 10 minutes, remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack.
