Holiday Baking with Nestle Chocolate Abuelita

Last month I had attended a wonderful event at the Nestle headquarters in Glendale. It was to honor the Día de los Muertos holiday, which in English means, Day of the Dead. Día de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday where families and friends gather to celebrate, remember & prepare special foods in honor of those who have departed. In popular culture, most folks (non-Latino people) only know about Día de los Muertos as it relates to sugar skulls & face painting. I’m guilty of that as well & so when I was invited to Nestle to learn about how Nestle’s Abuelita plays an important part in holiday celebrations, I was excited to learn more!

One of the important traditions of Día de los Muertos is to build an altar.

I learned several key things from the speaker about how to build an altar. Generally it is made with materials that have a special meaning to the deceased & one creates the altar in the home.

In my husband’s culture, Japanese people have a similar tradition, centered around the Obon festival. It is a time of celebration & family reunion as the people commemorate their ancestors. For my Filipino family, my dad told me stories of growing up in Hawaii & visiting the graves of loved ones who passed away & having to leave food or candles for the deceased.

Nestle’s Abuelita is an important ingredient in the kitchen when baking or cooking Mexican foods. I knew that you could use it for holiday baking or drinking (hot or iced) but you can also use Abuelita to make chicken mole – who knew?! After all, mole is made with chocolate, so why not use Nestle Chocolate Abuelita?!

While mingling with the other bloggers, I sipped on an iced Abuelita drink & munched on cookies made with it as well! I even had my own opportunity to decorate a sugar cookie.  🙂

I learned so much about Día de los Muertos. I enjoyed learning about the many uses of Nestle Abuelita & welcomed the opportunity to see my friends & fellow bloggers, Cynthia of Kinda Silly Mommy & Eva of Tech Life Magazine! Special thanks to Ederbean Face Art for doing a wonderful job of face painting!

If you’d like to learn about Nestle Abuelita, check out their website. They even have recipes for holiday baking!

Thank you Nestle for hosting a wonderful event!

Disclosure: I attended a media event at Nestle which helped facilitate this recap. I was under no obligation to write about it, but I wanted to share my experience with my readers. My opinions & images are 100% my own.