A friend of a friend has a couple of very productive Fuyu persimmon trees. She was practically begging for people to take them off her hands so I snagged a grocery sack full of them. Many of them were eaten out of hand or tossed into salads. I decided to turn a large amount of the softer ripe ones into persimmon butter. I did a trial run with a smallish batch to make sure it would work well. While they were cooking, the aroma reminded me of sweet potatoes which led me to spice the butter much like a pumpkin or sweet potato pie. The test batch was a great success, so I made an equally successful large batch. I gave away most of the jars for holiday gifts so I decided to try making a third batch with some less than ripe Fuyus I found - big mistake! It was horribly astringent and bitter, and no amount of sugar or spice could fix it so it ended up in the compost. Lesson learned - do not cook unripe persimmons, even the Fuyus will taste awful! <br />I used a technique I'd found for quince butter in which the cooking liquid is reduced without the fruit. I think it requires less baby-sitting, and is a bit faster than more traditional methods. I found the persimmon butter needs a bit of cooking after the puréed fruit and reduced cooking liquid are combined to get a nice thick consistency, but it still seems like less constant stirring than other methods I've used for making fruit butters.

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