Baked Eggless Persimmon & Strawberry Pudding: An English Pudding Faker

Persimmon can be an intimidating fruit if someone has consumed it in its pre-ripened state. Once upon a time I had bought this because of its color appeal. I got home and bit into it without a thought. You see, this fruit was completely new to me and I wasn't aware of its astringent properties. Yikes! I couldn't get rid of the foul taste for quite some time.So when I see this in the stores I give it a wide berth. But now that I am blogging, I gave it another shot.The ripened fruit is something else allright! I couldn't wait to make a muffin spiced with this fruit.But I added a little bit more of honey and oil than required and the batter became runny. So I decided to make a pudding instead. I call this an English Pudding Faker cause it wasn't baked/boiled/steamed using the traditional pudding basin.
The recipe is adapted from the base version that is actually for muffins,using all-purpose flour and eggs, and originally comes from 'Redwood City Kiwanis Farmer's Market Almanac' posted here.

Ingredients:

• Wheat Flour - 1 cup, unsifted
• Baking soda & Baking Powder -  1/2 tsp each
• Salt - 1/4 tsp
  
• Cinnamon - 1/8 tsp
  
• Allspice - 1/8 tsp
• Ripe Hachiya Persimmon - 2,chunked
• Ripe Strawberry - 6, diced
  
• Olive Oil - 1/3 cup
• Honey - 1/2 cup 

Procedure:

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
  
• In a bowl, mix all the dry ingredients.
• In a blender, add the oil, honey,chunked persimmon and puree. 
• Pour the puree into the bowl and using a whisk or spatula mix gently.
• Pour into any greased baking pan and bake for 30 minutes or until the mixture gets a thick custard-like consistency.
  
• Cool for 10 minutes and stir in the diced strawberries.
• Use ramekins to mold the mixture into pudding. Serve warm.
  

Makes 8-9 ramekins.

Enjoy!