Let me begin by stating that I have survived.
I survived both finals and the holidays and came out victorious - victorious because I will be graduating summa cum laude in the spring. This was my goal going into college, so all the sleepless nights and anxiety and resultant acne paid off.
But needless to say, Christmas and New Years have been keeping me busy in the kitchen these last few weeks, so I have had more to do than stare at my computer screen until my grades came out. There were gingerbread cookies and mini cannolis and honey-coated struffoli and baby rum cakes and date-stuffed maamoul and citrus biscotti and walnut shortbread and Nutella drop cookies.
I gave most of it away and then didn’t touch the sugar jar for over a week…other than to put it in my coffee in the morning. And I wouldn’t have touched it at all (really, I swear*) if not for the bag of overripe guavas sitting in a corner of my kitchen.
My friend Vidhi has a guava tree in her backyard, and it produces fruit at the end of November and into December. So for the last few years, Vidhi has given my family a bag of guavas during the holidays. And sometimes, if I'm lucky, we get to pick the guavas together.
The first time I tasted a guava (which was when Vidhi first started bringing me the fruit from her yard), I remember being instantly hit by a wave of nostalgia. It was still faintly green and under ripe, which is how my mom likes to eat them, and it tasted like sunshine and freshly cut grass and early summer. It was glorious. Both the smell and the taste of the guava unlocked something stored away in the dark dusty corners of my mind.
Apparently, my mom craved guavas a lot when she was pregnant with me and would take walks as an excuse to steal the fruit that hung over the side of a neighbor’s fence. If that’s not some sort of sign, then I don’t know what is. I just thank my lucky stars that my mom never encountered an evil witch wanting a baby like Rapunzel’s mother did. If she had, my life would have been very different and I would have probably been named Guava, which isn’t attractive. But I digress.
I had 27 small, ripe guavas on my counter, and their pungent scent was saturating my kitchen and giving me a headache. So I set to work making jam. Using this recipe as a guide, I came up with a guava jam formula—because you never know quite how much guava puree you will end up with. Essentially, you stir in an equal number of cups of sugar as you have cups of puree. The amount of fruit puree also dictates the number of tablespoons of fruit pectin you add (fruit pectin helps the jam to thicken and gel). And for every cup of puree, I added two tablespoons of lemon juice. You can adjust my recipe accordingly.
The color of this jam is just gorgeous. It is the exact shade of coral that tinges the clouds at sunset. Just looking at my little jar of guava jam makes me happy, but I am going to be honest. I overcooked it. It tasted delicious but the texture was wrong—the jam was thick and chunky and rubbery. But I saved it by reheating it with a few tablespoons of water. On another note, I did not bother canning my guava jam. The batch was not large, so I don’t think it will ultimately last long enough to go bad. Plus, I’ll be keeping it in the refrigerator…and I may also be turning them into tropical thumbprint cookies before long.
*This is a lie.
Guava Jam
Ingredients
1-1/2 c. guava puree
1-1/2 c. sugar
Grated zest of 1/2 a lemon
3 tbsp. lemon juice
1-1/2 tbsp. dry fruit pectin
I survived both finals and the holidays and came out victorious - victorious because I will be graduating summa cum laude in the spring. This was my goal going into college, so all the sleepless nights and anxiety and resultant acne paid off.
But needless to say, Christmas and New Years have been keeping me busy in the kitchen these last few weeks, so I have had more to do than stare at my computer screen until my grades came out. There were gingerbread cookies and mini cannolis and honey-coated struffoli and baby rum cakes and date-stuffed maamoul and citrus biscotti and walnut shortbread and Nutella drop cookies.
I gave most of it away and then didn’t touch the sugar jar for over a week…other than to put it in my coffee in the morning. And I wouldn’t have touched it at all (really, I swear*) if not for the bag of overripe guavas sitting in a corner of my kitchen.
My friend Vidhi has a guava tree in her backyard, and it produces fruit at the end of November and into December. So for the last few years, Vidhi has given my family a bag of guavas during the holidays. And sometimes, if I'm lucky, we get to pick the guavas together.
(My friend Vidhi reaching for a guava. I totally took this creeper shot of her.)
Apparently, my mom craved guavas a lot when she was pregnant with me and would take walks as an excuse to steal the fruit that hung over the side of a neighbor’s fence. If that’s not some sort of sign, then I don’t know what is. I just thank my lucky stars that my mom never encountered an evil witch wanting a baby like Rapunzel’s mother did. If she had, my life would have been very different and I would have probably been named Guava, which isn’t attractive. But I digress.
I had 27 small, ripe guavas on my counter, and their pungent scent was saturating my kitchen and giving me a headache. So I set to work making jam. Using this recipe as a guide, I came up with a guava jam formula—because you never know quite how much guava puree you will end up with. Essentially, you stir in an equal number of cups of sugar as you have cups of puree. The amount of fruit puree also dictates the number of tablespoons of fruit pectin you add (fruit pectin helps the jam to thicken and gel). And for every cup of puree, I added two tablespoons of lemon juice. You can adjust my recipe accordingly.
The color of this jam is just gorgeous. It is the exact shade of coral that tinges the clouds at sunset. Just looking at my little jar of guava jam makes me happy, but I am going to be honest. I overcooked it. It tasted delicious but the texture was wrong—the jam was thick and chunky and rubbery. But I saved it by reheating it with a few tablespoons of water. On another note, I did not bother canning my guava jam. The batch was not large, so I don’t think it will ultimately last long enough to go bad. Plus, I’ll be keeping it in the refrigerator…and I may also be turning them into tropical thumbprint cookies before long.
*This is a lie.
Guava Jam
Ingredients
1-1/2 c. guava puree
1-1/2 c. sugar
Grated zest of 1/2 a lemon
3 tbsp. lemon juice
1-1/2 tbsp. dry fruit pectin
- To make the guava puree, clean and peel the fruits. Then cut them in half and scoop out all of the seeds with a small spoon. It seems like a lot of waste, but trust me, the seeds are extremely hard and you won’t want them in your jam.
- Place all the guava halves in the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth. Set aside.
- Rinse and dry the food processor then pour in the sugar and lemon zest. Pulse until the sugar and zest are combined and the zest is fine. This allows the lemon flavor to be distributed more evenly and fully as well as prevents there from being rubbery strips of zest floating around in your jam.
- Combine the puree, lemon sugar, lemon juice, and fruit pectin in a large saucepot and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently with a heat-resistant rubber spatula. Be careful! The jam will splatter!
- Continue boiling and stirring the jam until it thickens. This took me roughly 10-12 minutes, but as I said, I mistakenly continued to cook mine. Take the jam off the heat when it is able to drip off your spatula in large, thick, delicious blobs.
- Let cool for a few minutes then pour into a clean jar. Store in the refrigerator.
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