Guava Paste (aka Guava Cheese, Goiabada) is a sweet delicacy which is common in former Portuguese colonies and several tropical regions in this world.
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The guava fruit is a versatile tropical fruit which finds good use in the kitchens of countries along the Equator, such as in a Guava Jam.
What is Guava Cheese?
Guava cheese is not a milk product, it's just the name for this sweet dish prepared in places such as in Goa (India), Brazil, and other former Portuguese colonies.
In other parts of the world, such as in Brazil and the English-speaking countries, Guava cheese might be better known as Guava paste, Goiabada or Guava cheese.
The Portuguese had been preparing quince cheese and quince jelly for centuries, and then used the same preparation method to make a sweet with guava.
That's how Guava cheese came to be!
How to make Guava Pasta?
To make Guava cheese is super easy but very time-consuming! I am not going to lie to you, even I got impatient at some point while cooking it.
I ended up with far too much video footage for the Guava cheese making that I had to shorten the video to make it all fit into the video time frame.
Yet, Guava cheese is worth all the trouble and the time spent making this wonderful natural sweet from scratch!
I usually don't like sweets, but Guava cheese is my ultimate kryptonite!
Guava Cheese made from scratch melts in the mouth, it's fruity sweet being clouds my reason and I take in each bite before picking up another one, of course, in full automatic mode.
Moreover, Guava Cheese only requires 3 ingredients: Fresh ripe Guava fruits, Sugar and water, that's it!
First you prepare the seedless pulp before slow stir-fry cooking it with sugar and some water for at least 90 minutes (yeah I know, but just think of the incredible sweet reward!!!) until the paste thickens to a candy consistency.
Then you just need it to cool and cut it however you want.
As I said, making Guava Cheese is easy, it's just time-consuming, so you should do that on a day off when you have some time for yourself.
For the full recipe with detailed instructions in black and white, please see further below, the Guava cheese recipe card.
More tropical fruit Recipes
📖 Recipe
3 Ingredient Guava Paste Recipe
Instructions
- Wash your fruits well, cut off the ends and discard those parts. Cut your fruits into quarters, if they are bigger than mine, then just cut them a little smaller. Place into a cooking pot with a part of the water, that means add about 300 milliliters or 1 ½ cups to the fruit. Cook the fruits until soft for about 15–20 minutes.
- Once cooked, mash directly with a stick blender. If you are using a regular blender, let cool a bit first and transfer the fruits to the blender. Blend to a smooth paste. Then grab a mixing bowl with a sieve and strain the pulp so that the guava seeds are separated from the pulp. Discard the seeds.
- Add the pulp back into the cooking pot and add in all the sugar! Place on the heat, keep it on medium and at the end pour in the remaining water, which is about 100 milliliter or ½ cup.
- From now on, just stir the content and always keep the heat in mind. The mass should never burn, but it should also reduce enough in a timely manner. I would keep it on induction on a medium heat level. As long as you stir, nothing can go wrong anyway!
- You will need to stir the content until it thickens in such a way that you can add a little of the candy mass into water and if it doesn't dissolve but stays firm, then it's ready. In total, you will be stirring and reducing the mass for about 60–80 minutes non-stop.
- Grease your mold.
- If you have poured the mass into the mold and if after having cooled down, you tried to cut but realized it was far too soft, then just take back the whole mass into something like a non-stick pan and just stir-fry it for another 10–20 minutes or until the whole thing gets thicker (do the water test). Then you can just pour it back into the greased and prepared mold and cut it when it has cooled down.
- Even after letting the guava paste cool for 1–2 hours, you can already cut the Guava cheese in its still warm state into whatever you like. The Guava cheese can be cut into diamonds, as I did, by cross-cutting.
Notes
- Use only organic/untreated Guavas for this because the fruits are not peeled!
- Guava pulp is slow cooked over a long period of time until the paste thickens. After that, it is left to cool in a buttered mold.
- It's easier to work with a nonstick pot! So what I like to do is I first cook the mass in a higher steel pot, then after 60+ minutes cooking I transfer it into a smaller nonstick shallow pan. The nonstick will help you to get the correct consistency quickly, which is due to the shape of the pan too. Furthermore, at some point, you are just fed up looking at the same pot 😀
- I also use brown sugar because the flavors suit the guavas better; however, you can use regular sugar too, but if you can, try to use only brown sugar.