Whole and chopped persimmons
One of our neighbors liberated some persimmons (and a rogue pomegranate) from a vacant yard in our neighborhood. So when life gives you persimmons, you make persimmon jam, dough and eventually persimmon hand pies. Persimmons are pretty easy to work with. You peel them with a peeler, cut them in half and remove the leafy top, then chop them up.
Persimmon Jam
I blended the chopped up pieces of about 6 persimmons, 8oz of orange juice, ginger, the juice of ½ a lemon and ½ cup of sugar into a puree. I boiled the puree in a covered, heavy bottomed pot for about 15 minutes. I mixed ¼ cup of orange juice with 2 TBS of cornstarch until all the lumps were dissolved. I poured the slurry into the boiling persimmon puree and stirred until the mixture came back to the boil and let boil for about 1 minute. This will assure that the jam comes to its full thickness. Remove the mixture from the heat and let cool down to room temperature. You can then jar in sterilized jar and store in the refrigerator. Since the jars have not been vacuum sealed the jam needs to be consumed within a couple of weeks.
Dough
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- 2 ½ cups sifted all purpose flour
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- ½ cup sugar
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- ¼ tsp salt
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- 1 cup iced water
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- 1 ¾ sticks chilled and cubed butter
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- the zest of 1 lemon
- ¼ cup chilled and cubed vegetable shorting vegetable shortening
Combine the flour, salt, butter, sugar, lemon zest and shortening in a food processor with the chopping attachment. Pulse until the mixture looks like fine sand. Slowly add the ice water 1 tablespoon at a time and pulse keep adding water until the dough starts to form pea sized balls. Test the dough by trying to form a ball, if the ball holds together, pour the mixture out on to the work services and knead together into a disk. Wrap the disk in wax paper and a zip top bag and store in the fridge for about an hour to chill. Roll the dough out onto a floured surface to about ¼ inch thick. Cut out into whatever shape you like. The dough recipe should be enough to make 8 3″ hand pies.
Persimmon and Orange Hand Pies
ingredients
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- ½ cup orange marmalade
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- ½ cup persimmon jam
- dough
Preheat oven to 350°
Roll out dough and cut into desired shape
Place 1 teaspoon each of marmalade and persimmon jam in the center of the dough. Repeat for all 8 pies.
Brush the edges of the filled dough pieces with water and then cover with a piece of dough. I’ve docked the top with a #8 piping tip to allow steam to escape. You can poke the dough with a fork a couple of times or make slits with a knife.
Crimp the edges and trim the edges. You can use a fork and a knife if you don’t have a scalloped pastry cutter.
Sprinkle the tops with sugar and bake at 350° for 25 to 30 minutes.
