Just like Mrs. Mitchell used to make… more or less!
I really can’t gush enough about how hungry I was reading Nanea’s books. It seemed like her mother was always taking the time to make some delicious treat for special occasions, average weekend mornings, or to bring comfort to friends in need. One treat that came up over and over again was her guava bread, which the Mitchell family would often enjoy for breakfast.
I’m going to say right off the bat that it didn’t live up to my expectations as a fruit bread. However, as a nut bread? I think we have a winner. Read on to find out what went in to making this Mitchell family favorite!
I’m going to say right off the bat that it didn’t live up to my expectations as a fruit bread. However, as a nut bread? I think we have a winner. Read on to find out what went in to making this Mitchell family favorite!
The guava bread Mrs. Mitchell makes is probably made with much fresher ingredients than I’ve got access to an entire ocean and continent away from Hawaii. One of the best parts about living in the Aloha state is access to fresh tropical fruits that we just don’t see in Washington, or Connecticut.
Unfortunately, that means the recipe I’ve got to share with you today probably isn’t the same sort of recipe Mrs. Mitchell made for her family, but hopefully it’s close enough!
Like many of the fruits and plants we associate with Hawaii today, guava did not originate in the islands, but thrives in its climate. It actually originates from Mexico and Central America. The recipe I’m using is from Hawaii’s Own, a Hawaiian company founded by professors from the University of Hawaii in 1959 that specializes in fruit juices. Like many companies, they suggest recipes for customers to try using their products, and I thought this one sounded easy enough and authentic enough to take for a spin.
To start off, you mix together 3 tablespoons of butter, 2 eggs, and 1/2 of a cup of brown sugar in a bowl. Nice and simple.
The next step involves the secret ingredients that turned this into a lovely nut bread: macadamia nuts!
Although macadamias are strongly associated with Hawaii around the world, they’re yet another transplant. Jessi would like to loudly point out that they’re actually Australian! They are native to parts of New South Wales and Queensland, and were first imported to Hawaii in 1910. Interestingly, we also know when the first European was recorded eating a macadamia nut: although the nuts were discovered by the Western world in 1828, it wasn’t until 1858 that a Westerner – a young boy – was observed eating one without keeling over dead. This is especially funny because macadamia nuts were eaten by the indigenous people of Australia, and white people just came really late to the party.
Macadamia nuts are expensive, but not hard to find on the mainland… except in my neighborhood, apparently. I looked in five different stores, and couldn’t find anything, so I was about to give up and order a giant bag off Amazon.
Fortunately, my mom came to the rescue!
This recipe calls for 3/4 of a cup of chopped macadamia nuts. After you’ve chopped yours up, you add the nuts to 1 3/4 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1/4 of a teaspoon of baking soda, and 1/2 of a teaspoon of salt, which you’ve hopefully sifted together. Mixing the nuts with the flour helps prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the loaf when it bakes, so make sure the nuts are nice and coated!
Next comes your wet ingredients. My grocery store (shockingly, I’m sure) doesn’t carry fresh guava or Hawaii’s Own branded products, so I had to make do with Goya. The guava in your recipe is coming from guava nectar, which is basically really thick fruit juice. You can find it in the “ethnic” food section of most grocery stores, usually grouped with other ingredients from Central and South America.
The flesh of a guava fruit can be pink, so a lot of guava products are artificially colored pink, like this nectar was. Other nectars are more of a pale golden yellow. I was interested to see if my bread was going to come out with a pink tinge, because the dye seemed pretty strong in the measuring cup.
Mix in half of your dry ingredients, add the guava nectar and a teaspoon of vanilla, and then the rest of the dry ingredients to finish forming your batter. Mine came out pretty thick and gloppy.
Pour it into a greased loaf pan, and let it bake in a 350 degree oven for about an hour. Interestingly, mine was finished within the hour, which is unusual for my oven! It also slid out of the pan nice and easily.
The bread was a little dry, which made cutting it a little frustrating. Crumbs everywhere, and I worried about my slices crumbling if I was eating it in one hand without a plate. Which, you know, happens when you’re scurrying around the house trying to prepare for work or school, or volunteering for the Red Cross to help the war effort.
I left the macadamias large enough to be seen in the bread too, and it was interesting seeing how a couple of them hadn’t quite cooked all the way through. Still tasty though!
And that’s more or less my opinion about the entire loaf. It wasn’t really up to my expectations, but it was still tasty! I think I was just expecting the guava to be a stronger flavor, considering this was marketed as a guava bread. The strawberry guava pancakes I made from my Hawaiian care package were definitely more obviously fruity, while this was more subtle and in the background. I brought it to work and labeled it as a guava macadamia nut bread so anyone with nut allergies knew to avoid it, and when I was talking about it with one of my coworkers, she agreed that the fruit didn’t really come through and said “I think you could've taken off the "guava" description and I wouldn't have been wondering what else I tasted.”
So, this wasn’t a great guava bread. But it was a tasty macadamia nut bread! I happily ate several slices of it at home and at work, and my coworkers helped polish it off very quickly, so although it was a little disappointing, it wasn’t a failure. It just sort of seems like I’m going to need to try a few more recipes before I get one that I’ll be excited to make for my future kids, if you catch my drift.
Who knows, maybe AG will come out with an official Mrs. Mitchell recipe that’ll knock this one out of the water!
Unfortunately, that means the recipe I’ve got to share with you today probably isn’t the same sort of recipe Mrs. Mitchell made for her family, but hopefully it’s close enough!
Like many of the fruits and plants we associate with Hawaii today, guava did not originate in the islands, but thrives in its climate. It actually originates from Mexico and Central America. The recipe I’m using is from Hawaii’s Own, a Hawaiian company founded by professors from the University of Hawaii in 1959 that specializes in fruit juices. Like many companies, they suggest recipes for customers to try using their products, and I thought this one sounded easy enough and authentic enough to take for a spin.
To start off, you mix together 3 tablespoons of butter, 2 eggs, and 1/2 of a cup of brown sugar in a bowl. Nice and simple.
Macadamia nuts are expensive, but not hard to find on the mainland… except in my neighborhood, apparently. I looked in five different stores, and couldn’t find anything, so I was about to give up and order a giant bag off Amazon.
Fortunately, my mom came to the rescue!
This recipe calls for 3/4 of a cup of chopped macadamia nuts. After you’ve chopped yours up, you add the nuts to 1 3/4 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1/4 of a teaspoon of baking soda, and 1/2 of a teaspoon of salt, which you’ve hopefully sifted together. Mixing the nuts with the flour helps prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the loaf when it bakes, so make sure the nuts are nice and coated!
Next comes your wet ingredients. My grocery store (shockingly, I’m sure) doesn’t carry fresh guava or Hawaii’s Own branded products, so I had to make do with Goya. The guava in your recipe is coming from guava nectar, which is basically really thick fruit juice. You can find it in the “ethnic” food section of most grocery stores, usually grouped with other ingredients from Central and South America.
The flesh of a guava fruit can be pink, so a lot of guava products are artificially colored pink, like this nectar was. Other nectars are more of a pale golden yellow. I was interested to see if my bread was going to come out with a pink tinge, because the dye seemed pretty strong in the measuring cup.
Pour it into a greased loaf pan, and let it bake in a 350 degree oven for about an hour. Interestingly, mine was finished within the hour, which is unusual for my oven! It also slid out of the pan nice and easily.
The bread was a little dry, which made cutting it a little frustrating. Crumbs everywhere, and I worried about my slices crumbling if I was eating it in one hand without a plate. Which, you know, happens when you’re scurrying around the house trying to prepare for work or school, or volunteering for the Red Cross to help the war effort.
I left the macadamias large enough to be seen in the bread too, and it was interesting seeing how a couple of them hadn’t quite cooked all the way through. Still tasty though!
So, this wasn’t a great guava bread. But it was a tasty macadamia nut bread! I happily ate several slices of it at home and at work, and my coworkers helped polish it off very quickly, so although it was a little disappointing, it wasn’t a failure. It just sort of seems like I’m going to need to try a few more recipes before I get one that I’ll be excited to make for my future kids, if you catch my drift.
Who knows, maybe AG will come out with an official Mrs. Mitchell recipe that’ll knock this one out of the water!
Hey, a girl can dream, right?
Glad to come to the rescue! Who knew BigY would come in handy??
ReplyDeleteI know right! To think I used to complain about how they didn't carry everything I needed. Little did I know...
DeleteI don’t know if you are still looking a comments, but just in case I have a question: you did not say how much guava juice to use (same goes for several other ingredients). If you added more juice do you think the guava flavor would be more noticeable?
ReplyDelete