Croissants:The Day that Fail Built

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Yesterday was just not the day to make croissants and was on it's way to being the day that FAIL built. It started with a nearly missed doctor appointment for baby flu shots, a trip to the wrong store for what I really needed, and an ill advised time deadline for a new customer. To sum up, my mojo took a leave of absence. Even my darling friends the yeastie beasties were not on my side.
Lest we forget, the mysterious and illusive croissant requires a four to six hour process involving a basic yeast dough, a metric ton of butter and lots of waiting. It is not a pastry for the patient. For the impatient pastry gal, you want pate de choux, better known as puff pastry to Americans. Croissants are a wholly bizarre other animal. Once again, I digress.
Here's how the croissant failure happened. Basic dough attempt number one did not rise properly putting me about and hour and a half behind schedule for the day. Attempt number two rose but had a terrible texture. If this were a test batch, which it should have been, I'd have thrown it out. The looming deadline and a desire to deliver on it drove me to continue against my better judgment. So what happened? I blame the yeast. I used a brand that I don't usually use and while it did proof, it had these really large granules that I think did nothing but sit there like little, texture killing interlopers.
I pressed on. Really pressed. The butter incorporation process, with all of the roll, fold, wait, roll, fold, wait for croissants is one of those things that really makes you wonder who sat around and thought that up. Bless them, but it was someone with more time and patience that I had yesterday, that's for sure. Press after press, turn after turn, I kept hoping and wishing, pleading, cajoling and even attempting to bribe the product into submission. It just wasn't going to happen. I wouldn't give up though. I took these little dough monsters all the way through the bake stage and got un-servable glop for my now 8 hours of work.
I called the customer. I explained the lack of mojo and the fail floating around like smog in my kitchen. She will get a free dozen after the Thanksgiving dust has settled. The game-show noise for a Price is Right looser kept playing and replaying in my head. Do di do dum ...waaaaw. My yodeler had fallen off the cliff.
Did I get to crawl under the bed and play 'fort' till I felt better? Nope. I still had work to do. But here's where the silver lining appears...brandy balls! Heck yeah, I said it. Let me say it again BRANDY BALLS! Great Googily Moogily! Chocolate work always makes me feel better.
After the client phone call I decided to whip out some ganache for truffles to take to the familial Thanksgiving feast. Given the foul funk of fail in the kitchen, booze immediately came to mind as the flavoring of choice. In this case the flavoring combination is Triple Sec, Brandy and Extra-Dark Cocoa. I also used the disher that was officially deemed 'too big' for truffles. So now I have giant, boozy, yummy treats. This went some great way to improving my mood. I found homes for homeless loaves of bread, I made a delivery of sugar-free pecan clusters, had a nice meal with the family and went grocery shopping with no more fail. Who else has a job where booze fixes everything? A sommelier I suppose, but still, it's pretty fun...even when it's made of fail.