Guava Paste, You Shut Up!
Posted by Sunday on Aug 27, 2010 at 5:06 pmWell, I’m disgusted. So, I made this raspberry pie, see. It’s a nice enough raspberry pie, it’s been a recent favorite around here after a long spat of cherry pie requests. I realize we’re right smack in the middle of fresh fruit season, but two bags of frozen raspberries runs me less than $5 and when it’s too hot out to do anything but slap together a crust as fast as you can before the whole thing starts melting, it’s genius.

So there I am, making this pie, when I remember that Anger Burger reader Jason sent me a packet of guava paste. Which is well and good, lord knows I love a fruit paste, but I was having trouble deciding what to do with the stuff. It’s very dense and heavy, and while I wanted to make a guava cake, I knew I would have to cook it down with some water or guava juice to make it work in cake. And you know, that’s a lot of work for someone who recently bought nicer jim-jam bottoms so that she felt less embarrassed about going out to check her mail in them. However, I am standing there, staring at the usual pile of pie dough scraps, when a little fruitfly whispers in my ear: pasta de guayaba! And I’m all, I don’t speak fruitfly! You’re in America now! Learn the language! Freeloader.

First, a taste. Primary reaction: SUGAR! Holy christ, that’s sweet. But then: GUAVA! Lovely, floral, tropical guava. It even has the slight grit of a guava – like a pear. Somewhat disheartened, I wonder how I can make something so sweet palatable.

Hmm, I wonder, while staring at some fresh peaches. Hmm. What will I do. Hmm. Go buy some lemons? What would I do with them then? Hmm. Man, there’s a lot of fruitflies around those peaches.

I know what you’re thinking: for a lady, she’s a sharp one.

There was enough dough left over for four hand-pies, which included 1 1/2 good-sized slices of guava paste and three slices of peach each. Unsure of what else to do to them, I left them plain. Just peach and guava paste, no spices, nothing. The paste was plenty sugary to sweeten the slightly underripe peach, and I was getting too hot to give a shit otherwise. I hit them with some egg wash and granulated sugar to form a crust and into the oven they went.

So basically, here’s the deal: this was maybe the best fucking pastry I have made in my entire goddamn life. The guava paste softened in the heat and peach juices, and the peaches themselves were perfectly cooked. For whatever reason, instead of suffering under the indignity of a re-roll, my pie dough turned out perfectly flaky and crisp. The proportions, the flavors, everything about it was incredible. As I ate I was overwhelmed with a blind fury, incensed that I hadn’t made a dozen of these things instead of wasting my time with that stupid raspberry pie. Crumbs sprayed from me in a cloud. I gulped for air around giant, still-warm mouthfuls of pie.
Jason, we may have to arrange for more of this guava paste to belong to me.






















