Guava Butter
The hardest part of making guava butter is finding the guavas. Go ahead, try shopping for them, I double-dog-dare you. They're the Loch Ness monster of the produce department, reported by many but never quite seen. You have a better chance of finding a menehune at the local Foodland as a guava.
If you want guavas en masse, you pretty much have to forage for your own.
This past weekend we did just that. Up in the Waianae Mountains above Makua Valley we stumbled across more wild guavas then we could possibly eat. The air was thick with the sweet sour gooey scent of rotting fruit. Decay has never smelled so good. All together we collected about twelve quarts without trying very hard, varying in size from golf ball to pool ball. Those cooked down to approximately twelve cups of butter. Assuming similar sized fruit, you can roughly estimate that a quart of fresh guavas will produce a cup of guava butter.
Why guava butter and not the more common guava jelly? Because I'm lazy and greedy. Clarifying the purified guava takes too much patience, and results in significantly less jelly by the time the flesh has been strained. I want enough to share, without killing myself in the process.
Guava butter retains all the flavor of fresh wild guava, and is a cinch to make. Contrary to the name, there isn't any actual butter in a fruit butter, just the fruit and sugar. The name comes from the spreadable consistency of the end product... like room temperature butter.
Guava Butter
Special equipment: canning jars
- guavas
- water
- sugar
For this recipe, you want primarily ripe guavas, but it's okay to mix in a few greener fruit. The green guavas have a higher concentration of pectin, which will help thicken your guava butter. Even without green fruit, there should be enough pectin in the guava skins to give a good buttery consistency.
Wash your guavas, slice each in half and place in a pot. Cover with water, bring to a boil and cook for about 20 minutes. Stop when they are tender but before they dissolve into complete mush.
Now you need to strain the guava to remove the skin and seeds. A mesh colander would probably work fine. I used a Finnish potato ricer, because I happen to have one around. Who doesn't? (Most people, I imagine.) The key here is to smash the guavas through some sort of mesh to save most of the pulp while discarding the skin and seeds.
Once you've extracted as much guava pulp as you can, bring it to a mild simmer over medium heat. Add an equal amount of ordinary granulated sugar. If you have a cup of guava pulp, add a cup of sugar. If you have two cups of guava... well, I'll let you do the math. Cook 20 minutes to thicken.
While the guava is cooking down, boil your canning jars and lids for at least ten minutes to sterilize them.
Ladle the hot guava butter into canning jars. Screw on the lids, then submerge them in hot water and boil for... 20 minutes. Sensing the pattern here? Twenty minutes to tenderize the guava, twenty minutes to thicken and twenty to can. 20-20-20.
Remove the jars from the water and let cool completely, then enjoy the rare and glorious treat of homemade gauva butter. The guava butter should last an easy six months to a year, but refrigerate after opening.
looks delicious! I've heard these guava trees are taking over the forest areas around hawaii.
Guava trees are aggressively invasive, but the worst problems are with the strawberry guava trees, not the apple guavas like shown above. I saw loads of strawberry guava as well, but wasn't sure if it could be used in the same way.
Wow, thanks for the tip on where to find guavas! Occasionally the fruit stands along the north shore sell them, but foraging for them sounds like better fun. I much prefer eating the green guavas (with chili vinegar, mm!) than the ripe ones, but guava butter sounds tasty.. and you make it seem so easy, too. :)
Looks awesome! I need to try this myself! How did you get above Makua, from the Mokuleia side? You'll have to let me know the secret!
Embla, I've never tried green guava with chili vinegar, but I remember in Vietnam we had all manner of nearly ripe fruit with chili salt. So ono.
Tara, we went up from the Yokohama side, through the Kaena Tracking Station. You need to get a hiking or camping permit for Peacock Flats to get past all the military police, but once you clear the complex at the top of the ridge, the road turns to dirt and is fairly quiet for miles and miles. It takes about an hour to get from the station to Peacock Flats, along the ridge past Makua. Hiking trails and guavas abound!
my mom had told me about the guava and when I talked to her again, she said that it was indeed the strawberry guava taking over the forests. not sure if it would be good to make into butter, but maybe you could experiment?? was nice meeting you today!
I should have scooped up strawberry guavas to experiment, because now I'm not sure when I can get back up there. Next time... whenever that is. It was nice meeting you too!
-alan
Thank for this posting. I am renting a home in Los Angeles with a guava tree in the back yard and I had no clue what to do with them, or where to begin. For now I am collecting the guavas that fall off the tree, waiting to have enough to make a cake with. I wasn't sure if I should be picking them off the tree, or waiting for nature to tell me they're ready.
Do you have any recipes that begin with your guava butter? I was planning to mash mine up without adding sugar, and then use it in a cake which has it's own sugar added.
I don't have any recipes yet that incorporate guava butter. I've just been using it as a general purpose preserve. I imagine it could be layered in a jelly roll, or used as ebelskiver filling. In both those cases, it's still basically a separate ingredient though. If you have great success with anything, please let us know!
The guava tree in my backyard gave us a small laundry basket full of guava in one day...so happy they didnt get wasted! Thank you so much, now my family in the mailand can sample this years harvest!