Persimmon cake tastes like autumn

When I lived in New York, smells of cinnamon-tinged, buttery cake filling the air after Labor Day meant one thing: Italian prune plum season. Everyone seemed to rush to the markets to buy the blushing, tart fruit. Some might make it into jam, but most made Marian Burros’ famous plum torte, which was originally published in the New York Times in 1983 and has been, more or less, every September since.

In my first autumn in Los Angeles, I wanted to relive that baking thrill but with less East Coast freneticism. Although we get Italian prune plums here at the same time as in New York, because of the breadth of wonderful produce available here all year long, the plum’s appearance isn’t a runway stunner, no Naomi Campbell cameo.

For my spin on Burros’ classic cake, I wanted to use my favorite fruit, which has a decidedly more West Coast feel than any other: persimmons. Yes, you can get them all across the country (I grew up eating them in the South), but the sight of them signals fall in California to me more than any other, especially in late October and November when I see their dried versions, called hoshigaki, in markets.

To my delight, both varieties of persimmons — the squat, tomatolike Fuyu and the bell-shaped Hachiya — make a great one-for-one swap with the plums. One caveat: Although persimmons, especially the Hachiya variety, need to be water-balloon-ripe to be sweet and delicious, you want fruit that is ripe but still a little firm, like a stress ball. Otherwise, it’ll dissolve in the batter and not maintain shape. I don’t mess with Burros’ cake batter too much. I take the sugar down a smidge and increase the lemon juice a tad to balance the more overtly sweet persimmons. I also add a few spices — some turmeric and ginger — to boost the lightly vegetal-sweet flavor of persimmons without overwhelming their delicate aroma. The turmeric adds a gorgeous golden-light color to the batter too, hinting that a little West Coast sunshine looks good on everything, even a Yankee fruit cake.