persimmon butterscotch cake

Persimmoooons! Yum, yum, YUM! Some people don't think there's much flavour to them but they're wrong. Wrong! In New Zealand, we pretty much only grow the non-astringent Fuyu, so I'd never even heard of the astringent Hachiya type until a couple of years ago. I know for a fact I haven't been missing out. I can't imagine eating the gloopy, stringy soup that is a super ripe persimmon. Blurgh.



Now, what!? Cream cheese icing?! Oh my, too good.



But of course, super soft persimmons are a bit easier to use in cakes than hard ones... And thankfully, once a persimmon goes even a teensy bit soft, it's over for me; there's no way I'm eating it raw. That persimmon and its buddies are sent straight to a bowl of apples and bananas to ripen even more!

note white chocolate chunks at 9 and 10oclock

Persimmon baked goods are normally spiced up (like a carrot or apple cake) but I wasn't too keen on that. I grabbed David Lebovitz's recipe and, thinking about the flavour of a persimmon, decided to go down the caramel route. And oh what a delicious destination! It's more of a caramel flavour than a persimmon one but it's a good one nonetheless :)

Persimmon Butterscotch Cake
Adapted from David Lebovitz

Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 2/3 cup granulated white sugar

6 oz/170g butter, melted and cooled

1 1/2 cups persimmon puree

3 large eggs, room temp

1 tablespoon butterscotch liqueur

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon instant coffee granules

1 cup chopped white chocolate (big enough not to melt completely when baked and small enough not to all sink to the bottom...)

Grease a 9 inch bundt cake pan, line bottom with baking paper and grease the paper. Preheat oven to 175C/350F.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt and sugar. 

In a medium bowl, combine melted butter, persimmon puree, eggs, butterscotch liqueur, vanilla, and instant coffee. Gently fold into flour. Don't overmix!

Scrape batter into prepared pan and bake until a skewer comes out clean, about an hour. The sides of the cake may go a little weird halfway through but that's ok! Cool in pan for a couple of hours and then invert onto cooling rack.

Icing

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened

6oz/180g cream cheese, softened

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons persimmon puree

2/3 cup icing sugar, sifted

Cream together butter and cream cheese. Mix in vanilla extract and persimmon. Sift in icing sugar and combine. Spread over top of cake.