Baked Persimmon with Honey and Vanilla
The recipe comes from British cook Skye Gyngell by way of a Ukrainian food column, and there is almost nothing in it to get wrong: three ingredients and ten minutes in a 400°F (200°C) oven.
Heat does to persimmon what it does to a pear or a peach — the cell walls soften, some water evaporates, and the sugars concentrate. The honey, loosened by the fruit’s own juice and carrying the scraped vanilla seeds, becomes syrup right there in the dish. Three tablespoons is about 65 g, a little over 2 oz, and that really is enough for six fruit cut in half.
Variety matters more than anything else. Astringency comes from tannin, not from being underripe, so a puckering hachiya stays puckering even after baking. Look for fuyu — the squat, tomato-shaped kind sold ripe in most supermarkets — or any persimmon that already yields to a gentle press. An underripe one will soften in a day or two in a paper bag with an apple.
Ten minutes is a ceiling, not a target; five more and the halves slump into puree. Vanilla paste can stand in for the pod, extract cannot. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream — that temperature contrast is the whole point of the dessert.
Part of European cuisine — 103 more recipes in the section.
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Ingredients
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400F (200C).
Peel the fruit, halve each one, and arrange the persimmons in a ceramic baking dish (or a heavy skillet where they won't stick).
Split the vanilla pod lengthwise, scrape out the seeds with a knife, and mix them into the honey. Drizzle this honey over the persimmons and lay the vanilla pod on top. Put the dish in the oven for 10 minutes.
Serve the persimmons with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
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