Persimmon Tarts

Men are strange.

I can spend hours in the kitchen, whisking, mixing, melting, decorating, and when I finally enter the living-room bearing a plate of delicious cookies or cakes, Stano will murmur something like “yes of course, thank you, I’ll try them later, I’m not hungry now” - all this barely raising his eyes from the laptop, by the way. Aaaargh. Seems like he doesn’t share my cake love at all. Then one day, I grab a few sheets of frozen puff pastry, top them with sliced persimmons, brush them with whisked egg and throw the pastry into oven for 10 minutes. And he loves that! He asks me to make persimmon tarts again and again. I agree, they are nice and they can really come to a rescue when you need to bake something very quickly. Slices of persimmon look great on a crispy golden puff pastry, and cinnamon and nutmeg add a spicy twist to the mild sweet flavour of persimmon. But… Stano… what about all the other cakes I’ve baked?!

Ingredients

10 sheets frozen puff pastry (10×20cm or so), thawed

4 large firm persimmons, peeled

2 eggs

1 tbsp sour cream

3 tsp sugar*

1/4 cup diced walnuts

Slice of lemon

1/3 tsp ground cinnamon

Pinch of ground nutmeg

Makes 10 tarts

Preheat oven to 180C.

Beat eggs, sour cream, sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon with a fork.

Halve the persimmons and cut them into thin slices.

Arrange slices of persimmons on sheets of puff pastry, brush with egg/sour cream mixture, drizzle some lemon juice and sprinkle tarts with walnuts.

Bake for 10 minutes or until the puff pastry is golden and crispy.

*you might wish to adjust the sweetness as the persimmons we have here are really sweet and their flavour is very mild.