Persimmon Oatmeal Cookies

The drought conditions last year shriveled up my garden before it had a chance to get started, but we ended up with a bumper crop of the plumpest persimmons I've seen since we moved to Missouri.  I processed nearly 30 cups of pulp.  If you don't have trees in your area, you may be able to find frozen pulp at the store.  I've used my old standby recipe to make Persimmon bread and even converted them to muffin form, but we we ready to try something new.  I found this recipe on the Internet and the first batch was a hit.

Persimmon Oatmeal Cookies

1 stick (1/4 C) butter
1 C  sugar
1 egg
1 C persimmon pulp
1 1/2 C flour
1/2 t salt
1 t baking soda
1 t  cinnamon
1 t nutmeg
1 1/2 C old fashioned oats
1/2 walnuts


Cream together the butter and sugar.  Add the beaten egg and persimmon pulp.  Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture.  Mix to a stiff batter.  Fold in oats and walnuts.  Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

We didn't have any walnuts but I'm sure they would have been good (chocolate chips would work too).  The cookies don't melt down to a flat shape so you may want to flatten them with a fork à la peanut butter cookies.   The cookies stay moist and chewy.  Next time I will try them with whole wheat flour.