Tonight’s ingredient I’ve never tried before: guava paste!

I picked this up at a local big supermarket, in the aisle with all the Mexican/Jamaican stuff.  When I looked for recipes online the first “recipe” said to cut squares of guava paste and squares of cheese and skewer them with toothpicks for an appetizer. There were actually quite a few recipes for pastries with guava and cream cheese. I wanted something sweet, so I settled on this simple guava cake (http://www.cubanfoodguy.com/recipes/recipe-guava_cake.htm)

The texture of the guava paste is similar to fruit leather, although perhaps a little moister and stickier. It is sweet, but not too much so- maybe even slightly savory. I can definitely see it pairing well with cheese and want to try making little rolled appetizers of guava paste filled with cashew cheese.

The guava cake recipe was just a basic white (vanilla) cake. You cut strips of guava paste and lay them in between two layers of cake batter. When the cake bakes, the guava paste starts to melt and ooze and becomes more jelly-like. I followed the recipe exactly except I substituted the two eggs with egg replacer. The batter ended up really dry, more like a cookie, so I just added some soymilk until it was a more cake-like consistency.

This cake was awesome- simple but delicious. I’ll definitely be making it again!