Egg Fruit

One of my hobbies is learning all about and tasting fruit. I absolutely love fruit. Also, I enjoy sharing what I have learned about each of them. In this article, I talk all about Egg Fruit or Canistel. It also goes by the name of Yellow Sapote.

Learn all about the amazing Egg Fruit, where it comes from and where it grows, what the nutritional benefits are, how to eat it, and what it tastes like. It is one unique fruit. On to the information!

Where does the egg fruit or canistel grow?

The Egg fruit or Canistel originated and is native to Southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The Scientific name is Pouteria campechiana, but it is commonly known as canistel, egg fruit, cupcake fruit, or yellow sapote. It is a member of the Soptaceae family along with the mamey sapote and sapodilla that I featured here on my website.

They are cultivated around the world in places like India, Costa Rica, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and the United States. Here in the US, they grow in Florida, and Hawaii, and can grow in some of the other southern states.

The tree itself is evergreen and can grow up to about 30 feet tall.

What are the nutritional benefits of canistel?

The canistel or egg fruit is packed with vitamins and minerals:

• Good source of Vitamin A and Niacin
• Good source of Calcium and Vitamin C
• Healthy for the heart
• Lowers risk of diabetes
• Great for digestion
• High in fiber

You can find more egg fruit health benefits here. In the search bar put canistel or egg fruit.

How to Eat Egg Fruit or Canistel

The canistel starts off as green while it is growing then it turns a bright yellow/orange. It will very greatly in size from smallish to larger. It can be oval, oblong, or more heart-shaped or like a tear drop

Once picked it will ripen further and start to get slightly brownish. It should have a little give to it when it is ripe, similar to an avocado.

How you eat the egg fruit is very similar to how you eat an avocado.

Take a knife and slice it around lengthwise. Then pull it apart. There will be one maybe two large pits inside. Don’t eat the seeds. The skin is not eaten either.

Now you can use a spoon and scoop out the flesh and scrape it from the sides of the skin, again very similar to an avocado.

The canistel can be eaten fresh as is, made into jam, and put into things like pancakes, waffles, muffins, bread, etc. It is also commonly put in milkshakes or dried out to make flour.

What does egg fruit or canistel taste like?

This is one interesting-tasting fruit. First, the color is very much like a hard-boiled egg yolk. And the texture can range from being hard-boiled egg-like to more creamy like an avocado.

When you bite into it you get kind of like a pasty egg yolk taste, maybe a little gummy, where it makes your mouth kind of dry, again very similar to eating hard-boiled egg yolk, however, it is nice and sweet. Kind of like a sweet potato, but maybe even sweeter.

To sum up, I like to describe the taste of egg fruit as being a mix between sweet potato pie, baked sweet potato, and hard-boiled egg yolk. Like if all three of those had a baby, you would get this.

If you enjoy trying and experiencing different fruits, give this one a try! I found mine at my local International Supermarket. It was $6.99 a pound and cost me like around $4 for 3 small fruit.

I hope you enjoyed learning about this amazing fruit.

Watch the video I made about Egg Fruit!

Here are other fruit articles you may be interested in:

Hami Melon

Pink Pineapple

Gaya Melon

Jujube Fruit