Cherry Guava Marshmallow

I grew up adoring cherry guavas- eating them off the tree in autumn and watching my grandmother make them in to exquisite jelly. The trees are really just shrubs and easily grown, bearing deep red fruit every autumn, that are simply laden with goodness.

The fruit ripens in batches so it's easy to gather up a bowlful at a time to make use of. 

By adding a little over a cupful of water to a pot of guavas and simmering the fruit until the colour has faded from them, you'll soon have a gloriously rich liquid- enough to make a little traditional jelly or even some marshmallow.

How to make guava marshmallow:

1 cup of liquid (as above) 

Add 3 tbsps of good gelatine (I like nutra organics natural gelatin that I buy at Bin Inn) and heat gently to dissolve.

That's a few minutes stirring over low heat in a pot, or 30-40 seconds in  the microwave.

Stir in 1/2 cup of honey and then pour into a bowl that you can use a beater in or use an electric beater if you have one.

Beat until the mixture is pale pink, fluffy and thick.

Pour in to a prepared container quite quickly.

I use a small square slice tin lined with baking paper.

The marshmallow sets fast so within 20 minutes or so you'll be able to turn it out and cut it.

I rub my hands with cornflour as I handle the pieces and then stack them in layers in an airtight container.

They will keep just fine out on the bench until you've eaten them all.

Sweet, but tangy such a delightful food/medicine treat.  

You can now press the cooked berries through a sieve or work them through a moulie disgarding the hard seeds.

You could make this in to guava ice cream, or sweeten and mix it in to some thick Greek yoghurt, or chia seeds and coconut milk to make guava chia pudding. Guava paste takes a bit of work but it is truly the Queen of pastes. You can find that recipe here. 

Catherine X

Cherry Guava Ice Cream

It's a strange time of the year to be eating ice cream I know, but it seems that all the best ice cream fruits are in abundance in late autumn. Here in Hawke's Bay we have such a fabulous lineup: figs feijoas, cherry guavas, medlars, sweet persimmons, cape gooseberries, white sapote, kiwifruit, mandarins and so much more. One of the easiest fruit trees to grow in a home garden is the cherry guava (Psidium cattleyanum). An evergreen and elegant small tree that never fails to bear fruit, year after year.

I have written about making guava jelly and paste just here.

Every year I make at least one or two jars of ruby red guava jelly. Guava has the best flavour of all the jellies, I reckon.

My Nan used to make guava jelly, but you know I never saw her do anything else with the leftover pulp. A few years ago I decided to press the cooked berries through a sieve and of course you then ditch all those hard seeds. There is so much goodness in guavas- just what we need heading in to the winter months, 

This year as I was making paste with the pulp I remembered the guava ice cream recipe that my lovely dutch friend Margaret shared with me. She even gave me a little to try. The flavour is truly exquisite and the texture sublimely creamy, however, I can't quite justify the extreme sweetness of all the sugar and condensed milk that was in the recipe. So I made up my own version which I think will be happily flexible. I really don't think you can go wrong with it by adding a bit more of this and not so much of that. Next time I might try honey instead of condensed milk for instance.

This recipe is great for using up the half a jarful of jelly or paste that you often end up with when you're making preserves. Since there is only two of us I was happy to make a small batch so here's the general idea:

After I have strained the cooked fruit and used the liquid to make the jelly, I push the rest through a sieve. I then return the pulp to the saucepan and add perhaps a cupful of sugar. This mixture is then simmered to reduce (stirring often) for 10 minutes or so. If you want to make paste/cheese there's a whole lot more cooking to do so before you get to that stage take out 1 cupful of pulp, set it aside and leave it to cool completely.

Beat 125 mls of cream, add a 1/4-1/3 cup of condensed milk and then fold in the cooled pulp and a tablespoonful of jelly. Lastly add a splash of rosewater. Taste to see if it's how you want it. That's it. Freeze. This batch stayed soft and very creamy once frozen.

Katie X

Using Guavas: Jelly and Paste

Guava Jelly
If you are fortunate enough to have a guava tree in your garden then you will no doubt, have more fruit than you can eat or know what to do with so gather them up & pop them in a pot & make some guava jelly..the most divine jelly you have ever tasted, truly!

Sort through your gathered fruit discarding any guavas that are going off.
Give them a bit of a rinse off, pop them in to a pot & just cover with water.

Bring them to the boil & simmer for 10 minutes or until tender.

Tip into a sieve & let all the juices drip through.

(My grandmother used to hang the fruit in muslin over the bath in order to get every last drip of juice)

Return the juice to the (heavy bottomed pot) measuring as you do so that you then add 1/2 to 3/4 cup of sugar to every cup of juice.

Jellies are best made in small batches anyway.
Put this mix back on the stove & stir to dissolve the sugar.
Some recipes suggest that you add some lemon juice to the mixture..up to you.
Bring to the boil & cook for 10/20 minutes or until when you put a little jelly on to a cold saucer & wait a minute or so a wrinkly skin forms in the top of the jelly (rather than it justs runs off the saucer).

While the jelly is cooking sort out your nicest jars, give them a good wash in hot soapy water, rinse & pop them in to the oven on a medium oven for 20 minutes to sterilize them.
At the setting point carefully pour the hot jelly in to your jars.
Seal with a jam seal & rubberband.

 Make a pretty label if you like. Utterly heaven on a spoon.

Now, rather than throw all that fruit in to the compost have a go at making some paste..it's worth it.

Guava Paste
Before you go to all the trouble of washing the pot out push the guavas through a sieve with a wooden spoon until you just have seeds left & you're sick of the process.

Once again add 1/2 to 3/4 cup of sugar to each cup of fruit pulp.

 Now the paste takes a good deal longer than the jelly. Put on a really low heat & keep stirring every now again for the period of several hours until it starts to really thicken up & begins to come a way from the sides of the pot.
Pour in to oiled moulds or spread on to greased proof paper & leave lightly covered to firm up for a day or two.

Serve with cheese & fruit & oat biscuits or crackers if you like.. so yummy!!!

This pic via the New Zealand Gardener magazine April 2011
The same process applies to making almost any jelly or fruit paste. I have just made quince paste & feijoa which is also delicious!

Katie