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This fall favorite uses a different orange fruit

Recipe: Old-fashioned persimmon pudding with pecans

Bake a homey persimmon pudding for a fall dessert. This one includes pecans, too.

Bake a homey persimmon pudding for a fall dessert. This one includes pecans, too. Debbie Arrington

Fall is not only pumpkin season – it’s persimmon season. And right now, ripe flat Fuyus and pointy Hachiyas are showing up in farmers markets – and falling off backyard trees.

Like an apple, Fuyus can be eaten when still crisp, although they also are good for baking when super soft. But the astringent tannin in crisp Hachiyas will make your mouth pucker; this variety can only be eaten when fully ripe. How ripe? The fruit feels like a balloon full of jelly and the pulp can be scooped out with a spoon.

Two persimmons and a measuring cup of pulp
Fuyu persimmons can be eaten crisp or soft.

Both Fuyu and Hachiya are among several Japanese persimmon varieties that are right at home in Sacramento. Japanese varieties grow very well in our mild climate and make an attractive edible ornamental in home landscapes.

This recipe is an adaptation of an old-fashioned Southern holiday pudding that used American native persimmons (Diospyros virginiana). Like the Hachiya, the American persimmon is packed with pucker power until it reaches that super-soft stage.

The word “persimmon” actually is derived from the Algonquin name for this fruit. It grows wild from Connecticut to Florida and west to Texas and Oklahoma. Although naturally shrubby in poor soils with limited water, mature American persimmon trees can reach 100 feet tall in rich soil with good irrigation. (And when they drop their super-ripe fruit, they can make one heck of a sticky mess.)

Old-fashioned persimmon pudding

Makes 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

¾ cup milk

1-1/4 cups persimmon pulp

½ cup pecans, chopped

Confectioner’s sugar

Butter to grease baking dish

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg.

Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and pumpkin pie spice. Stir flour mixture into butter-sugar mixture, alternating with milk.

Push persimmon pulp through a sieve to remove fibrous pieces. Fold persimmon into batter. Add pecans.

Grease an 8- to 9-inch baking dish. Pour batter into the dish. Dust top with confectioner’s sugar.

Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

Remove from the oven. Let cool.

Serve with more confectioner’s sugar or whipped cream, if desired.

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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3

November still offers good weather for fall planting:

* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.

* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.

* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.

* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.

* Plant garlic and onions.

* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.

* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.

* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.

* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.

* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.

* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.

* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.

* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.

* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.

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