Grandma’s Persimmon Cookies
This popular persimmon cookies recipe is awesome with a cold glass of milk. When Fall arrives and persimmons are plentiful, make a batch of these to share! It’s an old recipe that Grandma used to make and I still have her original written recipe! We originally published her recipe back in 2011 and have updated the information in this article about what the best persimmons are for her cookies. Enjoy!
Persimmon Cookies Recipe from Grandma
This cookie recipe is direct from my Grandma’s recipe box to you. They are a gloriously soft, moist cookie. Somewhere in-between the texture of a cookie and a fluffy cake, these persimmon cookies are similar to the cookie part of a whoopie pie cookie’s texture, but with the addition of toasted nuts and dried raisins or cranberries.
Grandma will always be one of my greatest kitchen inspirations. Anything she had in her rotation would almost always be a guarantee that I’d like it. Grandma left me with my first memories of cooking, and of trying octopus, and of learning as a five-year-old that I actually liked cooked carrots. If there was something I didn’t think I’d like, she would affectionately but unwaveringly insisted I try them. “You don’t have to eat them all, just try them.” After I found this recipe in Grandma’s recipe box and my mom declared it was one of her favorite cookies that Grandma would make, Diane and I knew we had to make a batch. And then another, and another… Over the years it has become a must have for us every fall & winter.
Video Making Grandma’s Persimmon Cookies
Best Fall and Winter Cookies
Why every fall & winter? That is the season for persimmons. It has always been one of our favorite trees to grow. As it’s beautiful leaves change color then drop in the fall, they reveal the bounty of fruit slowly ripening on it’s branches. As most of our garden in going dormant, the persimmon’s ripening fruit, in it’s stunning orange, fills our hearts.
Different Persimmons for Baking or Eating: Hachiya vs Fuyu
There are two main types of persimmons: astringent and non-astringent. The Hachiya is by far the most common astringent persimmon, and Fuyu is the most common non-astringent variety. The Hachiya persimmons (and other astringent varieties) are nearly in-edible until they are complete ripe. When ripe the flesh will be soft like pudding, but anything less than gooey soft means they are not ready yet so just give them more time to ripen (they’ll ripen fine on the counter). They Fuyu persimmons (and other non-astringent varieties) have a larger range of deliciousness. They’ll still have an astringency when un-ripe, but once they get a nice color, the flavor becomes quite nice, even while they are still firm. You can eat or cook with them like a crunchy apple. Given enough time, they too can soften and become more pudding like (similar to the Hachiya persimmons), but most often they are eaten or cooked while crunchy. Here’s a great article on different varieties of persimmons for all you persimmon-nerds like us.
Best Persimmon for Cookies
What is the best type of persimmon for this recipe? By far, the Hachiya (and similar varieties) are the best kind for the cookies. You want a soft persimmon puree, and the Hachiyas, when ripe are exactly that. Just pop off the top and scoop out the flesh. It should be so soft, you barely need to mix it to have a puree texture (a few smallish lumps are fine in the cookies). You can use the Fuyu types if they are given the chance to ripen up really soft, but they won’t always ripe properly that soft if they are picked too soon (which often happens when picked commercially).
Persimmon Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (113 g) butter , softened
- 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) baking soda
- 1 cup (260 g) ripe persimmon pulp (about 1-2 very ripe persimmons)
- 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) kosher salt or sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon (1.25 ml) ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon (1.25 ml) ground clove
- 1 cup (120 g) chopped toasted nuts (walnuts or pecans are our favorite choices)
- 1 cup (145 g) raisins or dried cranberries
Equipment
- Medium Cookie Scoop optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to Bake at 325°F/163°C. Grease or line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
- Scoop the persimmon pulp from the fruit. (The easiest way we've found to do that is to lift the top leaf/stem section from the persimmon, then use a spoon to scoop out the pulp.) Break up the pulp a little to make the texture less varied. (It will get broken up more when you beat it into the batter. It's ok to have some bite sized intact pieces).
- Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add egg, and then add baking soda and persimmon pulp. Mix well (the mixture may still be a bit clumpy).
- In another bowl combine flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves and whisk together by hand until well combined, about 30 seconds.
- Stir the dry mixture into the wet ingredients until just combined. Stir in the nuts and raisins or cranberries. (Chilling the cookie dough at this point will help give fluffier cookies.)
- Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto the prepared sheet pan (a medium cookie scoop works great for this step). Keep cookies small and far apart as they spread out.
- Bake at 325°F/163°C for 15-18 minutes or until set and light golden around the edges. Allow to cool and serve.
Video
Nutrition Information per Serving
Love for our Persimmon Tree
Our Homegrown Persimmons (these are a giant fuyu that have been allowed to fully ripen). We were able to eat it crunchy like an apple and when they ripened soft, they were perfect for cookies. Update: Our persimmon tree died in 2016 due to the drought. But thankfully we have the photos to remember their gorgeous and delicious memories. We have a new tree (a regular fuyu – not a giant fuyu), that we’ve started and will hopefully take off and be as beautiful as its predecessor.
I just pulled the first batch of these out the oven. Mine didn’t really spread out so I had to eat 3 of them still warm from the oven for quality assurance purposes. They are just so great! Thank you for the wonderful recipe.
My mother makes me persimmon cookies every year around my birthday, I loved to share them with my kids but now that I am divorced and 33 years old I only share them with one of my clients and a few friends.
The recipe calls for “soda” – baking soda or drinking soda????
Baking soda. Normally we’ll write that out, but in this case we were writing out the recipe verbatim of how my grandmother had it.
I love the photo with the persimmons hanging on the tree. Oh my, I would love to have this variety in my garden (I only have the hard kind). As a child, I could eat these by the dozen until I get a cotton mouth lol! I’ve made persimmon custard, never tried cookies using the pulp. Will do. Thanks!
Wow. Persimmon cookies. Who would have thought? Very inspirational! The cookies look really yummy and i’m definitely printing out the recipe and trying them! Thanks for sharing..
Love the story and the photos.
I love the cookie and the idea of the new flavor for me. I think persimmon is not used as an ingredient for making cookie so I’m really interested in trying this one. Thanks for the recipe.
Excellent cookie photo.
Lovely post – brought tears to my eyes – hubby hates holidays to this day because it always meant more time in the kitchen for his papa – I like the idea of coming together being the thing and not the date – x
This looks great! I love how this was made. I’ve been trying to bake new cookie recipes but I never thought of trying persimmon cookies. Maybe this is the time to try this one.
These are so interesting and inspiring!!! I would love to try one, or some!
This is delightful, and the photography is beautiful, as always. Thank you for sharing 🙂
Really love the new layout of your blog. 🙂 These cookies look delicious. I gotta try your recipe soon.
Cherished family recipes are the best. Thank you for sharing yours and the story behind it. Fuyu Persimmons were my mother’s favorite. Beautiful post and photos!
Your blog is super. So are your photographies. They make me hungry. I have spent a nice moment when seeing them. Thanks a lot.
Lovely!
Persimmon cookies sound wonderful right about now. Very sweet that this recipe was handed down from your mom. I will miss my kids deeply if they are one day very far away 🙁 Learned so much from you both in Mexico. You are always inspirations!