Guava jam has a slight grainy texture and the pink guavas impart such beautiful colour to the jam that there is no necessity of adding any artificial colour. This guava jam has no added flavour or pectin either. Guavas and lemons contain pectin naturally that help in thickening of the jam.

Before we get started with the recipe, there are a few things that are important to know so that the flavour of the guava jam is perfect each time and your cooking experience is smooth and easy.

Guava – Pink guavas that are fully ripe work best for making jams since they are at the peak of their sweetness level. They should be soft. The ones we eat are a little crunchy and do not work that well for making jams. In short guavas that are too ripe to be eaten are the best ones for jams!

Cut guavas into small pieces – each quarter cut into atleast eight pieces should give decent sized pieces. Smaller pieces cook faster and turn mushy easily than larger chunks thus reducing wastage while extracting pulp.

Sugar – The amount of sugar required for the jam is dependent on a couple of factors. The sweetness of fruit varies and so does the amount of sugar required. But as a rule of thumb, for every one cup of guava pulp one cup of granulated sugar works absolutely perfect.

Lemon juice – The size of guavas and lemons varies so use one tablespoonful of lemon juice for every one cup of guava pulp.

Guava Jam Recipe

Yields about 400ml jam.

1 cup = 240 ml

Ingredients:

• Pink guavas – 500 gm, roughly 4 medium sized ones
• Water – 2 cup
• Sugar – 1 cup
• Lemon juice – 1 tbsp
• Saffron strands – 1 pinch
• Ice cold water – a small bowlful, to check consistency of jam towards the end

Instructions:

1. Wash well and wipe the guavas dry. Remove the ends and roughly chop the guavas into small pieces (Smaller than what is shown in the picture below). Tip: When I made this jam the second time, I realised that smaller pieces cook better sooner and yield more pulp easily with lesser effort.

2. In a thick bottomed kadai, add water and bring it to boil.

3. Add the guava pieces and cook covered until they are boiling for atleast 5 minutes. (Tip: pressure cooking for 1 or 2 whistles should also do the job).

3. When they are soft and mushy, turn off the flame. Keep it covered and allow to cool down to room temperature. Once cool, use a soup strainer to strain the guavas and save the water they were cooked in.

4. Using a spoon and a soup strainer, mash and strain guava pulp. Discard the seeds and peel.

5. You will be left with this bright pink coloured guava pulp!💗

6. Measure the guava pulp using a measuring cup. The proportions of sugar and lemon juice are linked to the amount of pulp the fruits yield. My fruits yielded one cup of pulp. So accordingly I have used one cup of sugar and one tablespoonful of lemon juice.

7. In the same kadai, add the strained water that was kept aside, strained guava pulp and sugar. Mix well. I have used sulphur-free organic sugar that has slightly brownish tinge to it. You may use any kind available at hand.

8. Heat the kadai on medium flame. Add lemon juice and mix well.

9. Add saffron strands and mix well. Adding saffron is entirely optional.

10. Bring the mixture to rolling boil while stirring continuously on medium flame. In order to avoid lumping and hardening, it is essential to stir the mixture continuously. Rolling boil is when the liquid does not stop bubbling even while stirring continuously. Exercise caution, the mixture tends to splatter at this stage! This step could take as much as 15 minutes.

11. To check if the jam has attained the required consistency, drop a quarter spoonful jam in a bowl of ice cold water. If the jam dissolves in water, continue cooking. If it forms a lump without disintegrating then the jam is ready. Turn off the flame and allow it to cool.

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