A few weeks back I posted about our awesome guava tree that had started gifting us gorgeous guavas. Well it’s now a few weeks later and today I picked 30 ripe guavas straight from the tree. My thinking cap has been on while figuring out what to do with this windfall and jam was an obvious option.
I tried a guava jam last week that turned into guava syrup instead of jam so today I tried again with an adjusted recipe and whooohooo! We’ve got wonderful Guava Jam!!!
Here how I made it...
GUAVA JAM
Ingredients
14 guavas = 5 cups (4 cups chopped guava + 1 cup strained pulp)
2 cups sugar
1 Heaped Tbsp lemon zest
3 Tbsp lemon juice
Method
Cut the top and nib of the guavas off and slice them in half.
Spoon out the seeds and keep aside.
Slice the guavas finely.
Place the sliced guavas in a microwave safe bowl, cover with cling film and steam in the microwave on full power for 5 minutes. (This softens the skins)
While the guavas steam, strain the seeds and pulp though a sieve using the back of a tablespoon to push the pulp through. This yields about a cup of pulp.
Place the steamed guavas, guava pulp and 2 cups of sugar in a large pot and bring to a rolling boil. Stir consistently to prevent burning.
Once at a rolling boil add the lemon juice and lemon zest.
Use a potato mashed to breakdown any skins that are still whole. This will give a chunky consistency. You can use a handheld blender if you want a smooth consistency.
Continue boiling for another 15 minutes until you get an almost jammy consistency.
Carefully spoon the hot jam into your sterilised jars. Close and leave to cool to room temperature. Once cooled place them in the fridge. The jam will thicken as it cools.
Yield 3 jars of Guava Jam
I had our first yummy serving of guava jam on wholewheat toast with butter and it was absolutely delicious!!!
It feels so good to be able to use our own fruit to create something from scratch in my kitchen. All it took was some time and sugar.
