Guava from the garden

I have been very excited to finally see some fruit from one of my fruit trees, this tree was relocated from my previous home 2 years ago and it was only at the most 2 feet tall when planted. I was surprised to see many guavas on the tree and I was actually hesitant that I would be able to harvest because of all the deers, raccoons, and other wildlife.

I have never liked the smell of fresh guavas, the smell is not appealing to me however, I do love guava paste and I love guava and cheese pastelitos (pastry). So, I decided to make a guava jam but I was not really sure how I was going to use it just yet.

So I went ahead a peeled 5 of the bigger ripe ones and scooped the seeds out. I place the seeds with the pulp that is attached to them in a pot with enough water to cover them with a cinnamon stick, keep the guava section aside for a little later. The goal is to soften all the pulp until it separates from the seeds. I added a cinnamon stick to infuse a little flavor during the process. After it is all mushy, pour everything through a strainer, places the liquid and cinnamon stick back in the pot with the guava sections that you had set aside. Add another cup of water or so and between 3/4 to 1 cup of sugar depending on your liking. I cooked this until it was soft and blended it with an immersible blender to a creamy consistency.

You will cook down in a low to moderate heat, occasionally stirring until it starts to thicken and darken in color. Keep an eye on it that it doesn’t stick to the bottom and burn. I stopped the cooking once it turned into the consistency of applesauce. At this point, you may adjust the sweetness by adding more sugar and placing it back on the stove for about 5-10 minutes to dissolve the sugar. The total cooking time is about 1 – 1½ hours.

I set this aside to cool and I debated making pastelitos (Cuban pastry) but I was not in the mood of making puff pastry. So, thought about cinnamon rolls but substituting the cinnamon, butter, and sugar for the guava jam I just made. Lately, I have been obsessed with making milk bread, it’s light, fluffy and so yummy, so I thought about making a batch to use for my rolls. There’s a lot of recipes for milk bread online that you can use, this is my modified version. I don’t add any milk powder because a lot of them are made with skim milk or low fat, and because of the content of whey in them, I can’t use them because my daughter is allergic to whey but can tolerate organic whole milk and heavy cream.

Milk Bread

This is a recipe I divided in half to make a smaller amount.

Ingredients:

• 305g bread flour + an additional 1 cup to add during the mixing.
  • different flours give you different results – lately I have been using Italian bread flour Anna Tipo 00 – because it’s light but that’s where the additional 1 cup of flour will come in handy.
• 60g sugar
• 10g yeast
• 1egg
• ½ cup of milk
• 50g heavy cream
• 3g salt
• ½ a stick of butter

For the roux

• ½ cup of water
• 1/6 cup of bread flour (I just take 1/3 of a cup measure and fill it half way)

This recipe is a little tedious but worth the results. I do weigh everything and the outcome of the dough should be a sticking gooey mess that you would need to butter your hands to handle.

Here’s the breakdown..

1. Make the roux first – mix water and flour into a small pot a mix until thicken, then cool.
2. In a stand mixer place the flour, sugar, yeast, salt, and egg.
3. Mix the milk and cream together in another bowl.
4. Start mixing and as you are mixing.
5. Add the milk mixture alternating with the roux.
6. The last thing to add is piece of room temperature butter.

If the mix looks runny then you can add the additional flour 1/4 cup at a time.

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Once again… this dough is a mess, butter your hands and have a little flour for dusting. At this point, you would want to move this dough out of the mixer and place it in a buttered bowl. Try to scrape and gather the dough into a mass to transfer into the bowl and cover with a cloth loosely and let rise until double 1-2 hours.

After the dough has risen place it onto a floured surface.

Roll the dough flat into a rectangle shape and fold into 3 (letter fold) do this 3 times adding flour as needed to prevent sticking. Now, you are ready to roll out the dough into ¼ inch thick rectangular shape mine was 16″x12″ (41cm x 31cm, smear with the guava jam and roll from one of the longest side of the rectangle. Once, rolled cut in half and cut each half into 5, place 5 in each round cake pan lined with parchment, cover and let rise again for 1-2 hours or until doubled.

• This task will be challenging and messy since the dough is so soft.

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Brush with milk or an egg wash (one egg beaten with water). Bake the rolls at 180° c or 356°f or round it off to 360°f – this will bake for about 35 mins. – 45 mins. I ended up doing 35 minutes and 10 minutes with a foil tent.

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After the rolls are baked and cool slightly, glaze with ½ cup of powdered sugar mixed with a couple of tablespoons of milk (2-3).

And there we have it yummy Guava rolls. The milk bread recipe may be used with any jam that your desire or add cinnamon sugar and you have cinnamon rolls. 🙂