First Meltdown of Advanced: Complete

Note to self: Mondays = Bad Croissant Day.

Some ECards. There's one appropriate for every situation.

Being a combination of hungover, delirious on allergy medication and operating on four hours of sleep leaves one with very little personal tools with which to cope with frustration. I took two stints in the walk-in freezer trying to cool down and even then I still resorted to pacing around the school twice, ranting belligerently under my breath. At croissants. Out of three heads of croissant dough (1 head of croissant dough = 20 croissants), I got precisely 20 croissants. That is easy math.

Sinister crab shaped playas.

My problem today was sincerely not the croissants themselves. I have in the past successfully made croissants that had beautiful lamination, puffed up beautifully and were an encouragement to me. My issue was with the sheeter. This marvel of modern technology is what I describe as a "rolling pin machine". Anything you need rolled out thinly, be it croissant dough, pie dough, puff pastry etc, the sheeter can get you where you want to go.

OR CAN IT??!

My encounter with the sheeter, which was the source of my croissant anxiety as soon as I got into advanced, could only be described visually as something like a slip 'n' slide or a mud run. You know, when you put on your ratty summer clothes (or maybe you don't and wish you did) and find a hill and some spring run off and have a messy afternoon. It's all fun and games and you think that you've got a handle on it until you get a tree root to the tailbone or you spin juuuuussst enough to launch you successfully into the brambles or for you to get a mouthful of your own knees. In the sheeter today, I found the tree root to my tailbone. The first dough: I enclosed my butter and then popped it on the sheeter. The sheeter is controlled by a crude button system that leaves you feeling somewhat like you are playing Whack-a-Mole. Or Bop-It. Does anyone over twelve like either of those games? (My apologies if you do. My sincere apologies.) All was going just fine. I had some scaling in my dough, which means that the butter had broken into pieces within the dough instead of being a cohesive piece, but that wasn't the end of the world. Scaling can still be fixed. I'm hummin' to myself, telling myself I worry for nothing -which I do- and THEN the sheeter skipped, which means I was playing with the buttons a little to much and the rollers jumped. This resulted in the sheeter ripping numerous holes in my laminated dough. When you rip a hole in laminated dough, you ruin the layers that produce a flaky croissant. You will likely end up with a lopsided croissant or a croissant that looks like this. (No disrespect.) Anyway, I was disappointed but I knew that the dough could still be used. I had to pop the dough in the freezer to chill it quickly before I could do the next fold. Did that, enclosed my butter in my next piece of dough, and set it up on the sheeter. Back, forth, back, forth. I got scaling again. "Oh crap. Why is this happening? I feel like I made the same mistake I JUST made."

3, 2, 1.

The sheeter -and here is where I am choosing to editorialize and have absolutely no perspective- ripped my laminated dough not only in half but in numerous pieces. At this point I think I look like Yosemite Sam -except instead of a huge cowboy hat I have a tiiiiiiny bakers cap that makes my head look too small for my body. If you picture this, you will have no sympathy for me. It will just be really funny. A baker with shoulders like a linebacker crying over shredded croissant dough. I went and found my Chef who told me to go stand in the freezer. Which helped but didn't really take the edge off. When I came back, Chef rolled my croissant dough for me while I watched. Those croissants turned out just fine.

I'm not bitter AT ALL.

I was on the PMS-side of irrational for the rest of the day. What I got to do with the ripped laminated dough -because it is still useable- was roll it out, cram it full of almond cream, chocolate chips, pistachios and dried cranberries and make sweet spiral rolls. Not a sucky option at all but still not croissants.

The bittersweet piece to this story is that our Chef just started us on a two-day rotation which means I get to do croissants TOMORROW. I have a small prayer bible and a horse tranquilizer in case tomorrow goes the way of today. The benefit of doing it again tomorrow is my mistakes are fresh in my mind. I can go into it tomorrow knowing what I need to do differently. After that, I doubt I'll want to see croissants ever again but I get to do in another twelve rotations!

Fun thing though is tomorrow I'm going on a field trip! A huge panel of well respected Chef's are giving a talk tomorrow. About what, I don't know. But I'm hoping for some inspiration. I'm already a little fatigued with mousse cakes and tarts. We leave school early as well which means I'm not going to be able to waste time and cry in the freezer like I did today. 1230 and my croissants have to be busted beyond all recovery because that's all the time I've got. My attitude will get better, I promise. It's me and chamomile hanging tonight. Valium's coming over later. He can always talk me off a ledge.

It's almost Easter! Go buy some cream eggs. Pipe a rosette of whipped cream on top. Feel fancy. Repeat.