A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, served with Flan and Guava pastries

 I could not let Latinx Heritage Month go by without posting something!  I read this cute book last month after seeing it all over bookstagram.  A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow is all the things I enjoy in a book.  Fun engaging characters, a little bit of romance, a great setting and FOOD.  

Lila Reyes' family ships her off to England for the summer to stay with her cousin after she goes through several large set backs.  Her abuela dies, her best friend moves away and her boyfriend decides he needs a break.  She is planning to take over the families Cuban bakery but first she needs to get her life back together.  Of course she meets someone, learns some new baking skills and gets to use her already great skills, makes friends and starts to think about other ideas for her future.  

I really enjoyed Orion, the love interest and was so interested in some of the food discussed.  This is a quick read and maybe just a little predictable but still fun.  I enjoyed it! Probably 3.5 stars but I rounded up because Goodreads doesn't do halves!  They should. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I was inspired to try Cuban Flan and guava pastries.  I love flan and thought this can't be too hard. 

I'll be honest, my food turned out okay but i think with a little alterations, it could be great. 

Here is the flan recipe I used. https://www.baconismagic.ca/cuba/cuban-flan/   It was super east but....  I  burned the caramel .  It moves so quickly to the dark caramel color and i didn't remove it from the heat fast enough.  I went ahead and used it but it had a bit of a burned taste to it.  The flan itself was really good.  Next time, remove it from the heat!   

The guava pastries were super easy.  I order guava paste on line.  I had never bought guava paste and couldn't find it in the grocery store.  I used Puff Pastry and cut up the guava paste, topped with some cream cheese and baked. The guava paste was not easy to work with.  it is thick and sticky!  But these tasted good.  Next time i think i'll cut up the puff pastry into squares in advance because cutting it after i had it stuffed was tough.  The guava kept sticking to the knife.  AND I use more cream cheese.  I was skimpy with the cream cheese and I recognize now that i needed much, much more.  but, overall super simple and tasty.