Gluten Free Persimmon Cookies

A colleague at work brought persimmons, I love to eat them but these are the long kind that are best used for baking. Persimmons come in two varieties - Fuyu and Hachiya - with very different properties. Fuyu are short and look like tomatoes; they are meant to be peeled, sliced, and eaten like apples. Hachiya (those pictured are unripe Hachiya) are larger than the Fuyu and somewhat acorn shaped. They need to ripen completely. Unripe hachiyas are extremely astringent and will make your mouth pucker if you try to eat them. When the Hachiya persimmon behaves like a seriously overripe tomato (completely soft to the touch all around) and its insides are a slurry, that's when they can be opened, and the sweet pulp spooned out and eaten. One makes baked goods like these persimmon cookies with the pulp from Hachiya persimmons.

Ingredients

• ½ cup agave nectar
• ½ cup (4 oz) grape seed oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs or use 2 tbsp of flaxmeal mixed in 4 tbsp of warm water
• ¾ cup very ripe Hachiya persimmon puree*
• 1 cup brown rice flour
• 1 cup amaranth flour
• ½ cup tapioca flour
• ¼ cup sorghum flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp of pure stevia or 5 packets of stevia
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp cloves (optional)
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

*Cut off the top of a very ripe hachiya persimmon (should be completely soft to the touch) and use a spoon to scoop out the pulp. Discard any seeds that might be there. Each persimmon should yield anywhere from 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of pulp. If it cannot be scooped, remove the peel and remove the seeds and puree it in a blender.

1 In a large bowl mix grape seed oil, agave nectar, vanilla and flaxmeal. Add persimmon puree, stirring until blended.

2 Stir together dry ingredients in a separate bowl including the stevia and walnuts. Add dry ingredients to persimmon mixture a third at a time, stirring just until flour is incorporated.

3 Put this dough in the fridge for an hour longer, making it easier to scoop or make small.

4 Preheat oven to 375°F. Make small rounds from Cookie dough and press them to be ¼ inch thick. Place them on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. Bake for 10 minutes.

5 Allow the cookies to cool down. My 8 year old daughter loved my cookies, its hard to get her to enjoy my gluten free sugar free cookies. Later I realized that I had added 3 tsp of stevia instead of 1 tsp and the cookies were sweet, much to her liking :)

Cool facts:

Agave Nectar and Stevia are excellent substitutes for Sugar. Foods that rapidly increase glucose in the blood stream rate as high Glycemic Index and those that release the glucose rather slowly have a low Glycemic Index. Both Agave Nectar and Stevia are natural foods with low Glycemic index. Agave nectar has Glycemic index of 15-30, Stevia has a Glycemic index of zero compared to raw sugar with an index of 65, making my baking rather guilt free!!