Guava Cupcakes and Guava Cream Cheese Frosting

I love fresh guava fruit, which is impossible to find outside of Hawaii. When I was at the grocery store last, I found some guava syrup and decided with Michael visiting this weekend it would be the perfect opportunity to try to make some!

After looking for guava cupcake recipes, I altered one from the Star Bulletin and added my own guava cream cheese frosting. Great success!

I found Margie's Guava Syrup in the syrup section of Kroger's. For this recipe you will need a 10 oz bottle of it.

Here's the recipe so you can have some aloha of your own:

Guava Cupcakes - makes 3 dozen

Batter:

• 2 and 3/4 cups cake flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup guava syrup (unsweetened)
• 5 egg yolks, slightly beaten
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Meringue:

• 7 egg whites
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/2 cup sugar

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line cupcake pans with cupcake liners
2. In a large bowl, sift together cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt
3. Add oil, water, guava syrup, egg yolks, and vanilla. Mix on medium speed with with an electric mixer until smooth.
4. For the meringue, in a separate small bowl beat egg whites with cream of tartar on high speed until soft peaks form. Slowly beat in 1/2 cup of sugar until stiff.
5. Fold batter into meringue until lightly mixed. This cupcake batter is very fluid.
6. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 of the way full with batter.
7. Bake for 20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
8. Allow cupcakes to cool for 5 minutes in the pan, and then move to a cooling rack until cooled completely.

Guava Cream Cheese Frosting - Baa Baa original :)

• 8 oz. of cream cheese, room temperature
• 3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3 cups confectioner's sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 tablespoon guava syrup
• red food coloring (optional)

1. Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and butter until fluffy
2. Slowly add the 3 cups of confectioner's sugar, mixing in between additions
3. Add the vanilla and the guava syrup, mixing until smooth
4. Optional: if you desire your frosting to be pinker, add red food coloring one drop at a time until a desired color is reached.

I hope that you enjoy these yummy cupcakes! Michael wanted the frosting to be nice and pink, so he added two drops of the red food coloring.

What I like about the recipe is that the cakes come out nice and light with a mild guava flavor and the frosting is a fair bit sweeter with guava.

Michael was a big help to me in the kitchen. I couldn't have done it without him (except that he made a huge mess while attempting to make the frosting). He may or may not have asked me to add those statements.

For those who might be interested in finding the pink polka-dot cupcake liners, they are made by Wilton, and I bought them from the Baker's Nook.