El día de dulces

Last week, actually exactly one week ago today, I had my most recent cooking class. We named this day "el día de dulces" (the day of sweets) because we made: pastel de manzanas (like an applie pie sort of, or maybe an apple pastry is the better translation), budin de pan, and peanut butter cookies (thanks to my mummy for sending a premix package)

We made first the pastel de manzanas:

The first step is to obviously peel the apples. On the right is Erin's hand, she had a lot of trouble peeling them with a knife. Even though I wasn't as fast as Pili, I tried my best. I tried to peel the apples and have it be in all one piece. And I almost had it!

I just had to show you all this photo, it looked too neat to me because you can see each grain of sugar as Pili sprinkled it on the sliced apples.

This post is reading like a cooking show. I show you like the first two steps to make this dessert and then TADA! The finished product! And let me tell you, it was delicious!

Then we made the peanut butter cookies! A lot of people here don't like peanut butter, maybe because its not common here. You can find it in the grocery stores, but its pretty expensive. But every chilean I have talked to said it has a strange taste. The best way to describe it to me is like americans eating veggiemite, most don't like the distinct flavor. However, my younger sister here, Maite, she loves Peanut butter, so the cookies were mainly for her. But the rest of the family tried them and said the peanut butter flavor wasn't that strong, so they liked them as well. I don't think the peanut butter cookies will ever replace the chocolate chip ones for my family here, they are in love with them!

Lastly I learned how to make budin de pan:

So budin de pan has very little ingredients. It's a dessert they make here to use the scraps of bread. My family makes it often because since Pili is a caterer, she makes a lot of little sandwiches without the crusts... and so instead of throwing the crusts away like we would in the states, they are all saved to make this dessert. So in this pan is only bread crusts and little pieces and leche (milk). It looks super appetizing I know. Haha

We made some caramel syrup type thing by melting sugar in a pan. This is just to give the dessert a little bit of flavor.

Off the top of my head, I can't remember why Pili was doing this. Yeah its been a while since we did this, thankfully I have it all written down! I promise before I make this for everyone at home, I will find out what is the importance of this step!

And yet again, TADA! This is the final step, well before it is cooked. I guess I forgot to take a photo of the finished product, but it looks like this but a little browner. I am such an expert I know!

So since I didn't take a photo of what it looks like in the end, I found one on the internet to show you all. We never make it in this shape, but this is basically what it looks like. It looks and is similar to flan, but a little bit different. Because I am not a big fan of flan, but I really like this. I guess you all will just have to wait to see what it is supposed to look and taste like! :)

This class went by super fast because each dessert was really easy to make. We didn't have class today, but I think for the next class we are going to make empanadas. Pili said that when we do make empanadas, we have to have a couple classes for them because its a process you need to repeat a few times to make sure you understand it all, and also because its kind of a long process. After this class, the family was super excited to see how wonderful the once (dinner - and no this word is not pronounced the same in english, its pronounced own-sae) was, because it is never filled with so many things like this all at once!