Day 30

Well, it was close to that (sans pants).  I went into a baking frenzy.  How big of a frenzy?  To put it simply, I made enough pastries to start my own company and I almost did.  Enough that I started inquiring at local shops if they'd want to sell them.

pluot (plum/apricot hybrid) + blueberry
with a lime zest and almond crust

Peach + Raspberry in an almond crust

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Before getting to that point, however, I was making all manners of tarts (or galettes if you want to be super specific, but hardly anybody knows what a galette is.  Heck, I didn't know until The Barefoot Contessa told me.  She then proceeded to laugh nervously in everyone's direction).

brown sugar yam with marshmallows

I mean come on.  Those look pretty good, right?  I made tons of these.  Took them to friends as thank yous, or as snacks for game night, but mostly they were devoured at home.  Not pictured was the dark chocolate ganache and raspberry tart with a shortbread crust.  That one went too fast to get a picture.

how I figure the tarts felt when Steven got home from work

So, after getting way too hyped up about the prospect of making millions of dollars selling fruit filled goodies, my fiance and I went to the store to start pricing out how much each one would cost to make.  I went a little crazy, picking out savory options, sweet options, extracts and nuts and whatsits for all kinds of nommables. Once home, we got to work.

expectation:

reality:

After making a ridiculous mess, flour winding up in places I didn't think were even exposed, a quadrillion tarts were made (amount exaggerated slightly for dramatic effect) and Steven put values, amounts, grams, prices etc all into a pretty little excel spreadsheet and we figured out the cost of each tart and what I'd have to sell them at make a profit.

Well, crap.

Without providing numbers, the crushing realization was that I'd probably have to bake 100x more tarts to make a profit, and that's assuming that any place would want to buy them for the amount it would require for me to make money.   Because while these tarts are delicious, they aren't made of gold leaf.  Or caviar.  Or, whatever rich people desire.  Small islands?  My tarts aren't made of small islands in the Mediterranean.

So, these tarts will continue to just be made for friends and family and diet saboteurs.  I will sell them too (on an individual basis) if anyone is interested, just imagine me dancing in the kitchen as I make them - that'll have to substitute the small island.