Hot Rolling

Across the street from my apartment, there's a very trendy hot yoga studio. I'm not one to turn down a fitness trend, so naturally I signed up for their $30 new client special - an unlimited month of yoga! What a bargain!

I failed to consider my distaste for the months of June-August, the fact that I keep my own apartment at a tepid 68 degrees, and the additional fact that I can barely do yoga in ideal temperatures (let alone 105 degrees). Somehow, I didn't put 2 and 2 together. Almost immediately, my head was spinning, my eyes were swimming, and I was lying in the fetal position on my non-slip resistant yoga mat. Suffice to say, the month-long bargain actually ended up being a $30 nap in a sauna.

The point of this story is that our new class is the hot yoga of baking. We have to keep the ovens around 400-450 to really puff up the puff pastry. The ovens are ginormous so they basically act as a furnace. Additionally, there's a lot of manual labor involved (rolling dough, constantly moving mixers so that we have space to work with the dough, rolling dough, rolling dough, rolling dough). The physical labor of the class would be pretty exhausting regardless, but the added aspect of a burning hot room really puts the cherry on top.

I used to be so grossed out watching things like Top Chef when people dripped sweat into their product. Now I just cross my fingers that I'm not doing the exact same thing.

Today was pretty exciting because we made a ton of stuff. Bain de Fruit, which is essentially a fruit tart made with a puff pastry base:

I'm not sure why that picture is sideways. We also made a Jalousie. It was really pretty even though it sort of looks like a gigantic McDonald's apple pie.

Finally, we made a pithivier, which is a giant dome of puff pastry filled with almond cream and raspberry jam. It's supposed to look like the sun. I'll take another picture tomorrow when we cut into it!