The last new cookie to round up my holiday cookie lineup were these persimmon thumbprint cookies, another recipe from Eat Cho Food. The inspiration to work with persimmons came when the mom of a student I mentored gave me a bag of Fuyu persimmons, straight from her tree. That woman is the definition of aggressive Asian hospitality and I must learn her ways.

I feel a sense of fondness and burden for this student. She is very thoughtful and observant, surprising me when she remembers things that I have said in the past or even being able to notice the way that I word or say things. I appreciate how open she is and am careful not to take that trust for granted. Unfortunately, she is also very much a “glass half empty” sort of person, especially about her life and the things she feels hopeless or powerless to change.

It is difficult to speak clear reasoning and notice the positive in your life, if your mind and emotions are predisposed to notice the negative first. Nevertheless, I think she has grown this past year, even in the ways she has learned to appreciate the little things she has in her life. It is slow but baby steps in the right direction.

My friend and I visited her earlier this month and gave her a care package before her finals, along with this verse.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” -Jeremiah 29:11

I try hard to take these words home for myself but I really pray she can take these words to her heart as well too.

Making the Cookies

The first order of business was making persimmon compote. After a quick job of peeling and dicing two persimmons, I simmered them, along with some sugar and a dash of cinnamon, on medium-low heat until it the mixture started to bubble and take on a jammy texture. I cooked this compote in a saucepan, but realized that it might’ve been better to cook it in a skillet or frying pan to widen my surface area and give more room for my spatula to work on breaking down the tender fruit bits. Because I couldn’t crush much of the fruit in a saucepan, the compote ended up being half jammy and half “fruit bits”.

Which if one likes “chunky” as part of their fruit marmalade, more power to them.

Though not perfectly smooth, it was still useable to be incorporated into cookies. This type of jam ended up working out for me, as when baked, the jam caramelized and the chunky fruit bits looked like little orange jewels that I believed, elevated the cookie.

Moving onto the dough, this dough was very simple. I appreciated that I needed nothing more than a flexible spatula and two bowls to bring this dough together. Something that I never thought to add into dough was cream cheese. Luckily, my roommate had half a block of cream cheese that was perfect to use for this recipe, which called for four ounces.

I’ve never incorporated cream cheese into cookie dough before but I imagine it would probably help with the crumb, maybe add some moisture to the dough, along with a new dimension of tanginess.

I creamed the softened butter and cream cheese together before adding the rest of the wet ingredients. I combined that mixture with my dry ingredients and formed it into a dough disk to be chilled.

After that, I partitioned the dough into roughly ~18 pieces, about 31-33 g each. I rolled each of these pieces into little balls and rolled them in demerara sugar pressing each down with the palm of my hand until around 1/2″ thick. I used a teaspoon to make a little well in each cookie for the jam.

Similar to what I’ve encountered with the kaya linzer cookies, I realized that I could afford to be much more generous with the jam filling than I originally expected.

I baked these cookies at 350F for around 18 minutes (always, always underbake cookies) until the bottoms were golden brown and the compote jam appeared to have caramelized, giving it this really nice deep orange color. The sugar topping made the cookies sparkle, similar to what I’ve seen when I last made brioche twists.

These cookies had a nice crumbly but soft texture. I always like the sparkling look that demerara sugar gives to baked good, which reminds me that I should make it more. I also appreciate the tanginess from the cream cheese, which complemented the more mellow cinnamon and vanilla notes of the cookie. The persimmon notes didn’t taste as strong, which I wonder if it was related to how ripe it was. These persimmons didn’t seem underripe to me but I wonder if this would be a recipe that would have preferred overripe persimmons more. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant tasting cookie that I would enjoy best warm.

In the end, this is what the final cookie line-up appeared below. I also threw in some condensed milk brownies to add a chocolate element to round out this cookie box. This took more time than I expected but overall, I’m satisfied by how it turned out.