I am an inveterate recipe tinkerer, unable to leave well enough alone. No matter how many times or how fervently I insist that I’ll make a recipe exactly the way that it was written—at least the first time through—I am incapable of doing so. I’m forever adding a little more salt or spice, reducing the oil just a smidge, or attempting to streamline a few steps.

There’s hubris in being a recipe tinkerer, which came home to me a few weeks ago, when I first made this persimmon quick bread. The original recipe is by James Beard, who is kind of a BFD—after all, they named one of the most prestigious food awards in America after him, and he’s widely regarded as a pivotal figure in American culinary history. He wrote a few books, appeared on a TV show or two, and sometimes vacationed with Julia Child, if that tells you anything. In short, Beard was a guy who knew his stuff, food-wise, and his recipes are well thought-out. Still, I found myself from changing this recipe to my liking.

At first blush, fiddling with a Beard recipe seems crazy: who am I to do such a thing? I have no formal culinary training and am barely two months into this blogging business; why do I suppose that I can make something better than James Beard? But at second look, this is precisely what I should be doing, and what I expect you to do as well—to make something different, hopefully better, perhaps worse, but nevertheless according to your own likes and dislikes. This is, after all, how innovation happens, and it’s how we grow as cooks and make food that we like to eat. We are curious. We try, we taste, we try again. And if it makes you feel any better, Beard himself is no stranger to tinkering; David Lebovitz points out that Beard gives an “inexact” amount of sugar in this recipe, an unusual act that allows the baker to bake according to their preference. Whether he states it explicitly or not, Beard is intrinsically aware that we all cook to our own liking, and that’s a good thing.

Beard’s recipe was far too sweet for me, so I reduced the sugar by half and replaced some of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat to make this less of a dessert and more of an anytime treat. I substituted ground allspice, which I always have on hand, for ground mace, which I generally don’t (you could also try nutmeg or ginger), and swapped the bourbon for rum, since I didn’t want to use the good stuff for bread. If you disagree with any of these changes, I think it goes without saying that you’re welcome to adjust them.

Persimmon Quick Bread

Adapted from James Beard’s Beard on Bread

Makes one 9″ x 5″ or 8 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ loaf

Active time: ~25 minutes; total time ~85 minutes

Note: There are many different varieties of persimmons, but the two I see most commonly are Fuyu and Hachiya. Fuyu are non-astringent and can be used when relatively firm, although I recommend letting them get very ripe for this recipe. Hachiya taste unpleasantly astringent unless they are very ripe.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup walnuts (optional)
• 2 very ripe persimmons
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1–2 teaspoons ground allspice (I prefer the higher amount)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup lightly packed brown sugar (light or dark)
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/3 cup bourbon, rum, or milk, if you prefer an alcohol-free version

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour or otherwise grease a 9 x 5″ or 8 1/2 x 4 1/2″ loaf pan; set aside.
• If using the walnuts: Heat a medium skillet over medium heat. While it’s heating, coarsely chop the walnuts, then add them to the pan when it’s warm and toast until they’re golden brown and fragrant. This will likely take 5–10 minutes. Transfer the nuts from the skillet to a plate and let them cool slightly.
• While the nuts are toasting, melt butter on the stove or in a microwave; I do it in the microwave for about 2 minutes on 30% power. Set the melted butter aside.
• Bisect the persimmons along their equators and scoop their pulp into a small bowl. Discard the peels, then mash the puree with a fork until you have a mix of smooth and a few lumps; it needn’t be uniform.
• Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir with a fork to combine, mashing any brown sugar lumps as necessary. Add the persimmons, butter, eggs, and liquor or milk, and stir to combine.
• Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and bake for ~60 minutes, perhaps a little less for a smaller loaf pan, or until the loaf is beautifully burnished and a cake tester inserted into the middle of the loaf emerges with just a few crumbs hanging. Remove your loaf from the tin and allow it to cool on a rack.
• This bread is excellent warm, with butter; toasted, with a drizzle of honey; and pretty much any other way you care to have it—I certainly won’t tell you what to do.