We have 2 young kids that love freeze dried fruit. We were consistently spending $60-80 a month on freeze dried fruit. Add that to the fact that I was having to give away a good bit of stone fruit every year because I didn’t have a great way to preserve it; and you can see why we decided to buy the machine.
Some people do not like the texture, I actually like it. Assuming you like the texture, I think it is a good investment. We have never tried to rehydrate anything. I’m also freeze drying things we don’t grow. We try to pick up things at farmers markets and such during the growing season and preserve it to munch on over the winter.
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Someone else mentioned this before (perhaps in different thread) but the freeze drier tends to amplify flavors. Things that are tart become more tart. Things that are sweet become more sweet. Some people love dried watermelon but most think it is too sweet, etc… The fan favorites seem to be things that are sweet and tart before drying. They keep that balance in the end.
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What about cutting it with something neutral like zucchini…like 4 parts zucchini pulp to 1 part paw paw pulp?
It’s possible that what is happening is some of the acetogenins are losing a hydroxyl group and converting to a more potent form or might even be forming from precursor chemicals via esterification or something like that. If so, then it might be the dehydration itself, regardless of it from drying, baking, or freeze drying, that’s causing the problem.
Acetogenins have a lot of weird esters, peroxides, and ketones in them, seems plausible that dehydration reactions could be involved in producing more of them in the fruit or in changing them into more potent forms.
If that’s the case, then generally no form of dried pawpaw would be safe to eat, regardless of how it was dried.
The poison cookies anecdote would support this, since cookies dry out a lot more than bread.
Just a theory.
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Sauces is a whole category unto itself at the Ohio Pawpaw Festival food contest.
So yes, you can 
Many of the food trucks sell items garnished with pawpaw sauces.
I tried a Rice Krispy treat sandwich with a layer of pawpaw caramel sauce, which surely was heated (through perhaps only added pawpaw at the end of the process) and I had no issues.
But generally I agree that any kind of moderate or prolonged heating raises your chances of GI distress.
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Had no idea there was a problem. Thanks!
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I’ve eaten them raw, and in ice cream with no issue. Have made a couple of batches of ‘pawpaw honey’ kind of a cooked jam product… can’t find the recipe now, but I know it was cooked - and had no issues with that.
But after my infamous Poisonous Pawpaw Cookies caper, I’m very reluctant to eat any baked/cooked pawpaw product.
Once again… anymore, I’m gonna eat, at most, about one pawpaw, and no more until next year.
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