Our family loves eating persimmons from Granny’s tree next door, there are two trees, one of them makes a juicy, almost liquid when its ripe and very sweet fruit while the other makes a less sweet but meaty fruit that we don’t enjoy nearly as much and therefore they aren’t all consumed each season. I hate to waste the goodness that is available in our own back yard so I tried to find a way to use the fruit in a dessert that we would all enjoy and came up with Persimmon Bread Pudding.
I will include the recipe below if you are interested in making it, I also put together a little vanilla bean sauce to go with it that Kali enjoyed stirring until it was the perfect thickness on the stove.
Eli took a turn at the pot for a little bit as well … tiring after just a few moments but proud of his part in making the sauce, enough to ask for a bit on his piece of bread pudding dessert and he enjoyed it a lot.
I started with six ripe persimmons that I picked one day at the beginning of the week. We were heading to NOLA for a few Pelican preseason basketball games and I wouldn’t be making the bread pudding until today. So I peeled them and cut them into chunks and put them into a refrigerator storage container with a lid. I took it out today and tossed it all into my food processor and pulsed it until it was a nice creamy consistency before adding it to the mixture.
Dave was really pleased with the flavor and his mom and sister came over for a visit this evening and sampled it and gave it a gold seal of approval. Everyone enjoyed it. Read below the photos for the recipe.
Persimmon Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce
5 large eggs
6 cups French bread (day old works best, mine was pretty fresh but it worked out fine)
2 cans of condensed milk
2 cups of persimmon puree
(The use of condensed milk saves you the time of creaming the sugar into the eggs and using way more sugar to achieve the desired sweetness in the bread pudding. I love how simple this recipe is and how very quick it is to put it together and get it into the oven)
Crack your eggs into a large mixing bowl, beat them for a full minute with a wire whisk, add the condensed milk and the persimmon puree and stir until fully incorporated into the eggs, cut the French bread into one inch thick slices, then cut into about one inch cubes, toss into the bowl with the egg and milk and mix until all of the bread is coated with the egg/milk/persimmon mixture, let it sit and soak in for about fifteen minutes. You can add cinnamon and/or nutmeg to your recipe but we prefer it without. Liberally spray 9x11 deep baking dish with non stick cooking spray, pour contents of mixing bowl into the pan and cook at 350 Degrees for 35 to 45 minutes or until you can put a toothpick in and it comes out clean. I have a convection oven and it took 35 minutes for it to get golden brown on top and the toothpick came out clean, start watching it at the 30 minute mark to be on the safe side.
Vanilla Bean Sauce
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cups brown sugar tightly packed
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Bean Paste
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Combine all ingredients into a sauce pan and cook over medium heat until bubbling, turn heat down to low and cook until slightly reduced and thick, it took ours about 12 minutes stirring constantly. Allow to cool a little before pouring over warm bread pudding and enjoy.
Tonight after everyone left I had a square about 4.5” x 4.5” left in the pan and about half of the vanilla sauce, next time I may reduce the recipe for the sauce in half for a single pan of bread pudding.
