guava jam

i've been in a "crafty" mood lately, so when my dad and i picked like 40 pounds of guavas from our other house, i decided to make guava jam!

in trying to find a recipe, i found out that jam and jelly are different. jelly is made from the juice while jam is made up of the flesh of the fruit. and marmalade includes the rind. ::cue music:: the more you know!

i used this jam recipe. tho i was also kind of looking at this jelly recipe also. i mostly followed the recipe but balked at putting in that much sugar. dumb me thought "well, i like sour anyway!" 

it started out okay, but the stuff was just so watery! even after an hour of simmering to help evaporation it looked more like apple sauce than anything. i mean, it tasted good. really good, but it clearly wasn't the right texture.
 
after some research, i found out that sugar isn't just for taste! most jams require pectin to help it gel. guavas naturally have a lot of pectin, so the recipe didn't require any to be added. but sugar also helps set jams (so does the lemon juice, btw). so including only half the amount of required sugar meant that no amount of simmering was ever going to get it to set. doh!

so in hopes of fixing my jam, i went to target and picked up a box of pectin. i followed the recipe and crossed my fingers. the next day (you have to give it 24 hours to set after adding in pectin), i opened up a jar to see... no change at all! :( it still had the exact color and consistency of apple sauce.

i ate it anyway.

next time tho, i follow the recipe. haha!