Persimmon Pudding Cake - Not!

Photo from Wairere Online.

My colleague at work was kind enough to share the ripe persimmons from her tree.  Not liking the fruit itself, but loving persimmon bread and persimmon pudding, I decided to make a persimmon cake.  There is a nice recipe that I found at http://www.wairere.co.nz/poshnosh.mvc that sounded delicious.  Getting the pulp out of the persimmons was pretty easy.  I strained the fruit through fine-meshed strainer and what came out was a beautiful, orange-gold pulp.  Here's the recipe.

Ingredients

2 cups of persimmon pulp

4 eggs

½ cup butter, melted

¾ cups milk

1 tsp vanilla

1½ cups flour

½ cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

½ teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon allspice

Method

 Preheat  oven to 400° F. In a large bowl, mix the persimmon pulp, eggs, butter, milk and vanilla.  In a separate bowl, mix the flour, sugar baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients a third at a time.  Bake in a buttered glass pan at 400°F until done (about 50 minutes).

However, after about 30 minutes of baking, I realized that I had forgotten to add the baking soda and the baking powder.  The cake rose in the oven, and when I inserted the knife into its center, it came out dry.  I let it cool for about a half hour and found the courage to cut into it.  It sliced up like a pie.  It did not sink, and it tasted pretty darn good!