Pastelitos de Guayaba

Ingredients

• 350 g plain flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 200 g cold butter, cubed
• 90 ml ice-cold water
• 300 g guava paste, cut into slabs
• 150 g cream cheese — optional
• 1 egg, beaten, for the wash
• 1 tbsp sugar, for sprinkling — optional

Method

1. Cut the butter into the flour

   Rub the cold butter into the salted flour only until it looks like coarse gravel with flakes the size of a thumbnail still visible. Rub it to fine crumbs and you have shortcrust: those visible flakes are what turn to steam and lift the pastry into layers.

2. Bring it together and chill

   Add the ice water a spoonful at a time and press the dough into a slab without kneading it, then wrap and refrigerate for half an hour. Warm dough smears the butter into the flour and the pastelito bakes flat and greasy rather than puffed.

   30 min

3. Roll and cut

   Roll the chilled dough to about 3 mm and cut circles or squares of roughly 12 cm. Keep the offcuts stacked rather than balled up when you re-roll them — balling them destroys the layers you spent the last two steps protecting.

4. Fill and seal

   Lay a slab of guava paste and, if using, a smear of cream cheese on one half, keeping a clear 1 cm border, then fold over and crimp hard with a fork. Overfill or let the paste touch the edge and it boils out through the seal, welds itself to the tray and burns black.

5. Wash and vent

   Brush the tops with beaten egg, scatter the sugar, and prick each one twice with a knife tip. The vents let the steam out in a controlled place; without them the pastry inflates like a balloon and then bursts at whatever seam is weakest.

6. Bake and rest

   Bake at 200°C for twenty to twenty-five minutes until deep gold and puffed, then leave them on the tray for at least ten minutes. Molten guava paste holds heat far longer than the pastry looks like it should, and biting one straight from the oven scalds.

   23 min