Pawpaws, part two: stuck on you

I thought I knew pawpaws pretty well. I mean, what's to know? They grow at the edge of the woods; we pick,  peel, and eat 'em and toss out the seeds, unless the resident husbandman wants to save the seeds to try to grow next spring. Whatever. I know they're delicious. What more do I need to know?

But I'd never tried cooking with pawpaws before, primarily because they tend to get gobbled up too quickly to become ingredients. But this year's crop is abundant and we can only peel and eat so many, so I found a recipe and set to work.


The recipe seemed simple enough: pawpaw pulp with eggs, sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, vanilla, butter, salt, and baking powder, mixed in the right order, dumped in a buttered baking pan, and baked for 50 minutes. The texture resembles that of lemon bars but there's no crust, while the spices suggest pumpkin pie--but again, no crust. I can't report on finished flavor because it's still baking, but I can report that I now know one salient fact about pawpaws that had previously escaped my notice: they're sticky.

We're not talking moderately sticky. We're talking the kind of sticky that makes it hard to scrape all the mashed pulp out of the mixing bowl, and then if you happen to set that sticky bowl aside while assembling the remaining ingredients, the lingering pulp will turn gluey and adamantly resist removal from the bowl.

Not only that, but after washing all the preparation dishes, I've had to go back and wash my hands two or three more times because I can't get rid of that sticky feeling. My fingertips keep feeling like they want to stick to the keys--and now I wonder whether I got some pulp on my laptop keyboard. The pulp is thicker than glue and stickier than honey and it just won't go away.
 
But my house is now full of the comforting aroma of cinnamon, vanilla, and pawpaw, a scent that can linger as long as it wants. I just hope the dessert will stick around long enough to banish the memory of all that sticky pulp. 

(Pass the soap, would you? I can't get my fingers off the keys.)