Most of our chefs for our classes are friends and business partners we visit when we take our small-group tours to Italy, Peru, Malaysia, and Japan. So not only is Portugal a new country for us to “visit” virtually, but Chef Ana is a new friend and connection we’ve made during (and because of) the pandemic.

Chef Ana usually keeps herself busy running her own Lisbon Cooking Academy in… you guessed it, Lisbon, Portugal where she teaches cooking classes and hosts team-building cooking classes for work groups.

Since she usually works with travelers and large groups, once COVID hit, she suddenly had no customers. Of course it’s been stressful — as it has for small business owners all of the world — but Ana’s stayed positive; she says the down time has given her space to rethink her life and her business and has forced her to make changes she wouldn’t have made otherwise.

After finding our cooking classes online, she connected with Annie who got her set up to teach classes with us, which in turn, gave Chef Ana the courage to switch the classes at her cooking academy to be virtual.

chef ana at her cooking school in lisbon

chef ana teaching at her cooking school in lisbon

Chef Ana has been wow-ing us with her recipe for the most iconic Portuguese dessert, Pastel de Nata. These small, creamy custard tarts have notes of cinnamon, vanilla, and lemon — and lemme tell ya, they are dangerously delicious!

What are Pastel de Nata?

If you've spent any time in Portugal, you'll have met and become very well aquatinted with Pastel de Nata.

These little sweet, flaky, and incredibly addicting tarts can be found in every window and street corner and are devoured for breakfast, mid-morning snacks, and after lunch and dinner treats — basically at anytime you feel a craving (which will be constantly after that first bite — just be warned)!

Not only are they pretty much the most amazing thing you could put into your mouth, but they also come with an interesting history.

In 18th century Portugal, nuns used egg whites to starch their habits, leaving a lot of leftover egg yolks.

To make use of all those extra yolks, monks in the Jerónimos Monastery outside of Lisbon began experimenting with them, baking them into these tasty little tarts, and eventually ended up selling their creations in a small shop when the monasteries in Portugal were shut down for a time.

Today, that original recipe is still alive, SUPER SECRET, and the those special tarts — called pastéis de Belém — are still being sold not far from the monastery where they were created.

You may not be getting that "original" recipe from Chef Ana (even those who work at the shop don’t know the recipe in its entirety to prevent it being shared!) — but OH MAN, are her tarts still shockingly tasty! 

PRO TIP: Usually when you make puff pastry, you use butter, but because we won’t have time in class to properly cool the butter in the fridge between each of the layers, make sure you pick up some margarine as the recipe calls for and be sure to keep it cold before class!

Puff pastry can seem intimidating, but Chef Ana teaches you all the tricks to make it as easy as possible, so you’ll feel like a pretty accomplished baker by the end.

Meet Chef Ana for yourself and try your own hand at puff pastry and Pastel de Nata with one of her upcoming classes!