Mystery Lady's Persimmon Pudding

Soup Fly *'s Note:

The name is pudding, but the texture is more like an extremely moist cake. This recipe IS the holiday season to me. My grandmother makes it every Thanksgiving and Christmas. She used to make it the hard way, but learned a trick in the grocery line one year. A lady had several spice cake mixes and Grandma asked what she was making - she said persimmon pudding. Grandma got the recipe and never looked back. :-) I can't tell you how many people I've had say "eww, persimmon pudding?" only to beg for another piece!

• Total Time: 1 hrs 2 mins
• Prep Time: 7 mins
• Cook Time: 55 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 12

• 1 (18 3/4 ounce) box spice cake mix
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 pint persimmon pulp
• whipped topping (optional)

Directions:

1. Mix cake mix, eggs, oil and water together in large bowl.
2. Eggs, oil and water quantities may vary with cake mix brand- be sure to double check yours.
3. Add persimmon pulp to batter and mix well.
4. Pour batter into a lightly greased 9"x13" cake pan.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-55 minutes or until toothpick placed in center comes out clean (this"cake" does not rise, don't worry).
6. Allow to cool.
7. Serve cold or at room temperature.
8. Cool Whip or whipped cream is an excellent topping!

Reviews

[evegpt]

I would definitely call this a cake, a nice and moist one. I used carrot cake mix instead of spice and I frosted it with Fudge Frosting. My BIL pronounced it the best cake he had ever tasted and my DH loved it too. So it was a big hit. I will remake this but for my taste, I am going with just a golden cake mix next time. I thought the persimmon taste sort of got lost in all that spice flavor.

[AGA cook Joyce]

Her grandma is my mom, and I absolutely agree that this is the best, easient persimmon pudding ever. I make it any time I can get my hands on persimmon pulp. If you process your own persimmons, a Foley food mill, or a cone-shaped tomato sieve is the easiest thing I have found to use, although buying the pulp already sieved is the best way to go, since doing your own requires a lot of effort. You can search online for pulp to purchase in the fall of the year. Persimmon pulp freezes well and will last in the freezer for a year or so. If you don't know what persimmons taste like, you should make the effort to try this recipe - you'll probably like it as much as we do!

[MagPi]

This recipe makes a very nice dessert, and I do agree it is more cake than pudding. The first time around was a time bit complicated as I had never even tasted persimmons before, much less used them in a recipe. I did have to special order the fruit but all the extra pulp went into the freezer to be used later. I served it at work with whipped cream, they all loved it but thought it was a pumpkin cake, probably due to the spice cake mix used in this recipe. I think that I will try making it with chocolate cake mix just for the fun of it. I don't think that I will go the frosting route though, I'll just stick with the whipped cream or go with powdered sugar.