Today was a free day so we spent the morning wandering around Cusco, then we attended a class at the chocolate museum. The class was 2 hours long and taught us all about the benefits of cacao.

In class we learned how to take raw cacao beans, roast them, remove the outer shell (used to make cacao tea) then make a paste of the beans using a mortar and pestle. Once we had the paste, we added cinnamon and a little sugar and warm milk to make the best hot chocolate I’ve tasted.
We were then given a tray to make our own chocolates using any of 15 different ingredients to add to them.

  After lunch we took a Peruvian fusion cooking class. This took just over 5 hours. During the class we learned to make an appetizer with potatoes,chicken,olives, and advocado. The finished product was very tasty.

We learned how to properly taste Pisco, as well as make a few different drinks like a Pisco Sour.

The last part of the class was learning about chinese/peruvian fusion. We used a wok to cook alpaca and vegetables with pisco.

My final product was very tasty and for dessert we had chocolate heaven with chocolate mousse, truffle, and lava cake.

Before we started cooking, we spent some time learning about Peruvian potatoes, grains and fruits.

All this learning made for an excellent day.