The Sunshine Grove: Spring Cleaning and Guava Shells

Spring has arrived! And with its arrival we took a short hiatus for some Spring cleaning. We have The Sunshine Grove office looking organized, lots to add to the shop and some great vintage finds that have sparked future blog posts. We are excited for what’s to come.

I thought I’d share a quick how to for guava shells and marmalade. Their peak season ends this month so hurry to your local farmer’s market or Latin food store for a delicious and flavor packed dessert.

At my parent’s house after ice cream, guava is the most common dessert. Sometimes it is served as a paste over a slice of cheese, as guava shells with cream cheese or just the fruit itself from the tree. This time of year my grandparent’s guava tree gives fruit by the bag that family and friends gladly take. My grandfather suggested I try to make guava shells and marmalade since we had some extra mason jars around the house. Having never made them before I sought some guidance from a great uncle who gave some tips on the marmalade and a god father who gave me the run down on making the guava shells.

After my grandfather dropped off a grocery bag full of pink guavas I went to work. The prep time is pretty long as you have to peel the guavas, slice them in half and then spoon out the inside pulp and seeds. Some of the guavas were overly ripe so we don’t have perfect shells, but ended up being tasty anyway. We also had white guavas from our neighbor and decided to make some shells from those and mixed the pulp in with the pink guavas.

I put 2 large pots to boil and pulled out a large wok for the pulp. Jeremy helped me stir up the pulp until it started to be runny and then we transferred a few large spoonfuls into the colander so we had a nice red paste that was seed free. We added a heaping cup of sugar to the paste and let it simmer. Once it thickened up we jarred it and let it cool.

Once the other 2 pots were boiling we added the pink and the white shells each to a pot and let them soften. Since the pink shells are much smaller those went soft pretty quickly. We drained the water (saving it) and then put them back in the pot with 3 cups of the saved boiling water and added 2 cups of sugar, simmering until the simple syrup thickened up. Once the white guavas were soft we did the same but used a bit less water and sugar since there were less in volume.

The big grocery bag of guavas didn’t make as much shells or marmalade as we thought but it’s just enough for us all to taste and enjoy after dinner!

Make your own guava shells and paste:

http://www.squidoo.com/guava-shells-recipe

http://www.food.com/recipe/goiabada-guava-marmalade-456934