Recipe: Fresh guava and Meyer lemon ice cream

Last Updated on November 6, 2023 by Aaron von Frank

This simple guava ice cream recipe can be made using any home ice cream maker. It’s the perfect, refreshing dessert on a hot day! 

In our last article, we showed you how you can grow your own tropical guava fruit at home, even if you live in a cooler climate region like we do (Ag Zone 7b). In this article, we’re going to show you one of our favorite recipes to make with guava: guava Meyer lemon ice cream! 

Nom! Homemade guava and Meyer lemon ice cream with duck eggs. This has been a refreshing dessert on our odd scorching hot 90+ degree October days.

Four ingredient tips

One of the secrets to making truly great food: you have to start with truly great ingredients! Here are four ingredient tips to help you make this guava ice cream recipe a 10 out of 10:    

1. Use fresh guava if possible.

Don’t worry: if all you have access to is pre-prepared guava pulp or guava juice from the grocery store, you can still make this recipe. It just might not have the same zing as ice cream made from fresh ripe guavas.

There is also some flavor variability between guava cultivars, but that shouldn’t make too much difference. For reference, we used mostly ‘Peruvian white’ guavas with a little bit of ‘Ruby Supreme’ guava, but any guava cultivar will do.

Fresh guavas from our definitively non-tropical Zone 7b garden. The perfect start to this guava ice cream recipe! For this recipe, we used about 820 grams of guava, which is roughly 5 cups of chopped guava fruit.

2. Use a fresh organic Meyer lemon if possible.

We also used a fresh Meyer lemon for this recipe. Meyer lemon fruit and skin are sweeter than most other lemon varieties and offer exceptional zest quality — that’s one of the reasons we grow them. (Find out how to grow your own citrus in cooler climate regions.)  

Don’t have a Meyer lemon? No problem. But we do recommend you use a fresh lemon rather than pasteurized lemon juice or dried lemon zest. 

3. Use fresh duck eggs if possible. 

If you’ve ever been to this website before, you know we’re duck fanatics with pet ducks. Part of the reason we love ducks is because they make extraordinarily nutritious and flavorful eggs. (See our article duck eggs vs chicken eggs for a detailed comparison.) 

Yes, you can make this recipe with chicken eggs – just be sure to get jumbo chicken eggs so they’re as large as duck eggs (~2.5 ounces each). 

Since this recipe does call for raw eggs, it’s also very important to use the freshest possible eggs from healthy animals, ideally your own. Our eggs were laid the same day as this recipe was made, and we can assure you that our duck ladies are quite healthy.    

Duck eggs (bottom), Meyer lemon (center), and guavas, all fresh from our gardens and ready to be transformed into guava ice cream.

4. Use whole organic grass milk if possible

“Grassmilk” comes from dairy cattle who have a nearly 100% forage-based diet. Cow rumens are adapted to eating grass, not grains.

This means healthier, happier cows. It also means better tasting and more nutritious milk (for instance, 147% higher omega-3 fatty acids than conventional milk).  

Thankfully, whole organic grassmilk is fairly easy to find in most grocery stores now. 

Step-by-step process photos to help you make the best guava ice cream possible!

We’re highly visual and hands-on learners so it’s always nice to see more than just text when following a new recipe for the first time. 

Below are photos to help you get this recipe just right, your first time out: 

You’ll start off by poaching your chopped guavas on the stovetop with water and sugar.

After about 10 minutes on the stove, it’s time to blend the guavas into a liquid, seeds and all. (The seeds are strained out next.) If you don’t already have an immersion blender, you should definitely get one. An immersion blender lets you blend food into sauce right on your stove top without having to transfer it into a food processor.

Probably the MOST important tip in this recipe: strain out your guava seeds, which are very hard. We’ve found the perfect tool for straining guava seeds is our stainless steel Chinois strainer & stand. Simply place a pan below the strainer and use the wooden pestle to mash the pulp and juice through the strainer, leaving the seeds behind. You can also use cheesecloth or a metal pasta strainer, but the Chinois strainer is way easier.

After your poached guava pulp has had about 20-30 minutes to cool down, you’ll be adding all the other ingredients for your ice cream into a mixer. This is where we should also put a plug in for KitchenAid mixers, which will last for a lifetime.

Two of the ingredients that you’ll want to add to your blender are fresh Meyer lemon juice and lemon zest. Don’t add these up front or you’ll cook them and potentially overwhelm your ice cream with the zest flavor. By adding them into the cooled down mix, they taste bright, fresh, and acidic, but don’t overwhelm the guava flavor. Also, zest your lemon BEFORE you juice it – way easier that way!

After chilling the mixed ingredients in the fridge for about an hour, it’s time to turn them into ice cream! We use a Cuisinart ice cream maker which works great, but don’t worry if you have a different make/model: any homemade ice cream maker will do. One tip if you have a similar ice cream maker to ours: cover the top opening with a towel which traps the cold air, provides extra insulation, and makes the ice cream form more quickly.

The recipe: fresh guava and Meyer lemon ice cream

When your’re hungry and the guava ice cream is melting more by the minute, you don’t necessarily end up with the best photos, but trust us: this ice cream tastes really, really good.

Print

Fresh guava ice cream with Meyer lemon

Course: Dessert

Keyword: duck egg ice cream, fresh guavas, guava dessert recipe, guava ice cream

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Servings: 12

A delicious tropical-flavored ice cream perfect for after-dinner dessert on a hot day. Made with fresh guava fruit, Meyer lemons, duck or chicken eggs, and grass milk.   

Ingredients

• 5 cups fresh chopped guava 820 grams
• 2 cups water for poaching guavas
• 2 very fresh duck eggs or jumbo chicken eggs
• 1 cup organic cane sugar 1/2 cup for poaching, 1/2 cup added to blender
• 1/2 cup lemon juice juice from one whole lemon
• fresh lemon zest from one whole lemon
• 1 1/2 cups organic half and half (ideally made from grass milk)
• 2 cups whole organic grass milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Preparing the guavas

1. Rough chop about 5 cups of fresh guava fruit (about 820 grams). Place in saucepan with 2 cups of water and 1/2 cup sugar. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Blend guava to a liquid pulp with immersion blender, then remove from heat. (Or remove from heat and blend in food processor, if you don't have an immersion blender.) 

2. Strain the guavas through a Chinois strainer to remove the seeds, while extracting the pulp and juice. You can also use a metal pasta strainer or cheesecloth. It's very important to remove the guava seeds for a good final ice cream consistency. 

3. Let strained guava cool for about 20 minutes. 

Mixing all ice cream ingredients

1. In a stand mixer, cream 2 eggs + 1/2 cup sugar (this is in addition to the 1/2 cup sugar used in the guava puree). 

2. Add 1 1/2 cups half and half, 2 cups milk, and 1/2 tsp vanilla to the mixer. Then add guava puree, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Mix until all ingredients thoroughly blended. 

3. Place mixing bowl in fridge for 1 hour to chill all ingredients. 

Making ice cream

1. This recipe is enough for at least two full batches of ice cream in our Cuisinart ice cream maker. So, pour half of your chilled guava ice cream mix into your ice cream maker (enough for 6 or so servings). 

2. Ice cream should be ready in about 20-30 minutes. One tip we've found helpful for speeding up our ice cream maker: place a towel over the opening on top of the ice cream maker to help insulate and hold in cold air as it mixes.  

3. This recipe is best eaten immediately right out of the ice cream maker. It still tastes amazing after being stored in the freezer, but the consistency isn't quite as good as fresh. We store our ice cream in our freezer in pyrex baking dishes. Our chef friends who make ice cream with much fancier equipment and more dangerous processes (such as using liquid nitrogen) tell us that it's hard to replicate the smoothness of commercially produced ice cream in home ice cream makers due to the shape of the ice crystals that form under extreme cold temps provided by commercial devices/techniques. 

We hope you LOVE this homemade guava ice cream made with fresh guavas, Meyer lemons, duck eggs, and grassmilk! 

KIGI,

Related articles you’ll love:

• Guava quick bread with macadamia nuts
• Guava butter
• Meyer lemon bars with rosemary browned butter shortbread crust
• How to grow guavas in containers in non-tropical climate regions 
• How to grow citrus in pots in any climate zone
• Recipe: pawpaw passionfruit sorbet
• Easiest way to zest a lemon or orange 
• How to grow and make lemon blossom tea