Brown Sugar Cardamom Whipped Cream with Persimmons

I want to eat this brown sugar cardamom whipped cream on everything! This flavored whipped cream is great with fresh persimmons, tea cake, scones, or in coffee, hot chocolate, or tea!

I want to eat this brown sugar cardamom whipped cream on everything! The flavored whipped cream is great with fresh persimmons, tea cake, scones, or in coffee, hot chocolate, or tea! | www.pinchmeimeating.com

I want to eat this brown sugar cardamom whipped cream on everything! The flavored whipped cream is great with fresh persimmons, tea cake, scones, or in coffee, hot chocolate, or tea! | www.pinchmeimeating.com

Fall and Farmer’s Markets

Hurricane Matthew has come and gone, and, mercifully, apart from a lot of twigs and leaves in the yard and a big tree down behind our back fence, the most lasting effect in my neighborhood is that FALL IS HERE!

And the mosquitos have, for the most part, high-tailed it out of town.

So of course, I’m sitting on the back deck listening to the cicadas and the waterfall in the koi pond writing this post today. 

This weather is pretty much perfection, and I’m loving it.

So it was an ideal time to check out the new farmer’s market that just started a few weeks ago in my part of town.

farmers-market

It’s a smaller offshoot of the massive weekly farmer’s market downtown Charleston that includes not only produce, but also local honey, artisan soaps, crafts, jumping castles for the kids, live music (occasionally performed by my husband and me!), and food trucks! It’s like a big festival, every Saturday morning. It’s my favorite. 

This one was a bit smaller scale — fresh produce, the food trucks, the people selling fresh pasta and local meats, and live music, but without the all the crafts and the crazy number of people that are at the downtown one. Much more intimate. 

I was pretty stoked to see some local persimmons for sale, so I snagged a couple of the softest ones I could find.

persimmons

You see, in the old house I lived in before I got married, we had a persimmon tree in the yard. I had never eaten a persimmon before, so my roommate had to show me how. All I knew was that they look like orange tomatoes.

After she introduced me to the amazingness of persimmons, I couldn’t get enough of them. We had to get the ones we could reach when they were ripe enough, and we had to get them before the squirrels did!

It’s been a couple years since I lived there, and I haven’t seen locally-grown persimmons since then, so you can imagine how excited I was to find these!

Choosing and eating persimmons

With American persimmons, they’re best if you wait until they’re VERY ripe. Like, so ripe that if it were another kind of fruit, you might think they were too far gone and throw them out. So ripe the fruit flesh is like jelly and is bursting out of the skin.

This is because American persimmons (and most types of persimmon) are full of tannins and are therefore astringent. They’ll make your mouth pucker somethin’ terrible if you eat them when they’re too firm, so I’ve heard.

When they’re super soft, you can cut them open and sort of suck the fruit out of the skin, kind of like you would with a muscadine grape (except a persimmon is much bigger and the skin is thinner). The texture of the fruit, when they’re perfectly ripe, is kind of like jam – kind of gooey with more solid, chewy pieces here and there, so prepare to get messy if you’re eating it with your hands.

Because of their odd, jelly-like texture they’re apparently very good for pureeing and adding to baked goods, which I imagine is delicious but I haven’t tried yet (maybe I’ll give it a shot soon!) 

The flavor is hard to describe but it’s mild and they have almost a vanilla-y fragrance and a caramel-y undertone.

I want to eat this brown sugar cardamom whipped cream on everything! The flavored whipped cream is great with fresh persimmons, tea cake, scones, or in coffee, hot chocolate, or tea! | www.pinchmeimeating.com

I was so excited to find these I was just planning on eating them plain, but if you know me you know I think everything’s better with whipped cream, especially when you can whip some up in under a minute.

I just sliced them in half, spooned the fruit-goo out of the gritty skin and into a bowl, and tossed with a little brown sugar. Then, since I’m on a cardamom kick and the flavor goes AMAZINGLY with persimmons, I made some brown sugar cardamom whipped cream to go on top.  

If you’d prefer your cream atop fruit slices rather than a bowl of jam-like persimmon, get thee to a Fuyu persimmon. Turns out, while they look a lot like the American ones, Fuyu persimmons are non-astringent and so you can eat them when they’re not as ripe.

Who knew!

I’ve read that, as a general rule, squared-off persimmons or ones shaped like large acorns are astringent, while tomato-shaped ones are not. But astringent or non-astringent, you can eat them all when they’re super-ripe — so when in doubt, assume your persimmons are astringent!

Brown Sugar Cardamom Whipped Cream

This cardamom whipped cream is my new favorite thing. I love cream, whipped cream, infused whipped cream, cardamom, and everything about this.

When I went to make whipped cream for the persimmons, these cardamom orange scones were fresh on my mind. I decided to add a little cardamom into the cream, along with some vanilla and brown sugar. Since the persimmon already has a caramely/vanilla-like undertone, the cardamom whipped cream was the perfect complement.

I want to eat this brown sugar cardamom whipped cream on everything! The flavored whipped cream is great with fresh persimmons, tea cake, scones, or in coffee, hot chocolate, or tea! | www.pinchmeimeating.com

For two persimmons I made a small batch of whipped cream using my super easy trick to make it in under a minute with virtually no setup or cleanup, but I ended up making the cream again a couple days later to have with the amazing cinnamon tea cake my friends brought over for dinner.

I’m including a small-batch and regular-batch recipe for you below for easy conversion!

I want to eat this brown sugar cardamom whipped cream with everything: on persimmons, with tea cake, on scones, or on top of tea, hot chocolate, and coffee. More please!!

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I want to eat this brown sugar cardamom whipped cream on everything! The flavored whipped cream is great with fresh persimmons, tea cake, scones, or in coffee, hot chocolate, or tea! | www.pinchmeimeating.com
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Brown Sugar Cardamom Whipped Cream

I want to eat this brown sugar cardamom whipped cream on everything! This flavored whipped cream is great with fresh persimmons, tea cake, scones, or in coffee, hot chocolate, or tea!
Print Recipe Save Recipe
Course: Dessert
Prep Time:5 minutes

Ingredients

For a small batch

  • 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 1 1/2 tsp brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/8 tsp ground cardamom

For a larger batch

  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 tsp ground cardamom

Instructions

  • Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Whip until cream forms stiff peaks.

Notes

If making a small batch, you can use a handheld milk frother to whip the cream for easy cleanup! Just make sure you use a wider bowl so the cream is in a shallow layer, or it will be difficult to whip it once it starts to thicken.
If serving with persimmons, toss fruit with a little brown sugar first, if desired, before topping with whipped cream.
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