I have a lot of guava trees and, thus, a lot of guavas. I like them but I wanted to do something other than just eat bags of them. I decided bread what the right thing.

I went searching and found an amazing assortment of recipes for guava "stuff" and, generally, a lot of sugar. By guava stuff I mean nectar, paste and such. In other words, cans of stuff. I wanted to use guavas. That's the way we do things in Nicaragua.

Lacking a good answer, I decided to be creative. I have a bread machine (not the way things are usually done in Nicaragua but I am lazy/busy) so I just got creative and it came out good. Here is, more or less, the recipe.

Ingredients

• 2 cups, guava chopped fine (about half the size of a rasin)
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons honey
• one egg
• 3 cups flour (half whole wheat seems like the right answer)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons yeast

Making It

The big issue is getting the right amount of liquid. How juicy the guavas are will make the difference. Unfortunately, until the machine is pretty much finished mixing, it is hard to tell. I hedged my bet and added about 1/4 cup of water and about 1/4 cup of oatmeal. Probably too much water but the oatmeal can absorb a lot so it acts as a buffer.

Add all the ingredients as normal, and start on the regular bread cycle. At the "add ingredients" time check to see if a ball has formed and adjust the water or flour if it is too dry or wet.

The resulting bread smells like bread with guava jam on it. It is not really sweet. If you want something sweet, I would say use 4-5 tablespoons of honey.

For an almost vegan version, you could use tapa de dulce, agave nectar or any of the other non-animal sweetners, replace the butter with vegetable oil and replace the egg with a tablespoon of flax seed.