Dried Persimmon Slices

Native persimmons are easy.  The pulp gets frozen in 1 cup portions and added into various recipes like this persimmon cake or added into any recipe instead of banana or applesauce.  But I have a good sized fuyu persimmon tree out back, and had no clue what to do with them, other than eat them like apples.

The tree is planted beside the deck so that I can pick the fruit right out the back door.  It is a fast grower, and within just a few years that's exactly what happened. 
They're a whole different fruit from the native persimmons, and now that I have close to 50 of them it was a stroke of luck when Bartosh, over on the TEH facebook page, mentioned that he loved dried persimmon slices.  We're deep in apple schnitz country and I grew up eating dried apple slices, so it sounded like a good idea.

Off to the google I went, finding several (very) slightly different instructions.  They all included washing, thin-slicing, wire racks on a cookie sheet, and 200 - 250 degrees in the oven for 2 hours.

I tried a few things.  One was a dehydrator.  It might have worked, but the heating element wasn't working, so... ALL of the instructions talk about oven-drying, so maybe there's a reason for that. The first batch was sliced at about 1/4" as instructed.  They were good, but by the time my oven dried them, they were a little too brown and still too pliable.  The taste though!  These are really a very mild flavored fruit, so it's a surprise how the fruit sugar concentrates and deepens.  They are delicious.  Do use the rack though.  I tried one without, and they burned and stuck to the pan, surrounded by tiny pools of exquisite syrup.

I like them much better sliced very thin and dried to more of a chip-like texture.  So good!

Here's what I've found to work for me.

• Oven at 200 degrees F
• 1/8" thickness
• Arranged closely on wire rack on top of cookie sheets
• Bake for 3 hours
• When they are curly and almost completely dry, they're done.
• Those that you don't cram into your mouth while taking them off the rack should go into an airtight container, and be refrigerated.

I was going to send some to the kids, but there probably won't be any here long enough to get them packed up to ship. If you've got these and wondered what to do with all of those fruits (currently $2.99 each at the store), give this a try.  If you don't love them, someone you know will.

These prolific fruits also bring health benefits along with them.  They're loaded with fiber and all kinds of vitamins and nutrients.  That orange color tells us that it's got carotene and lots of vitamin A and C.  There's a good bit of lutein and lycopene bringing antioxident action and supporting eye health.  That's just scratching the surface, so you can feel good about eating them.

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