June 3, 2014
Two months ago, when this (still) as-of-yet-unnamed blog launched, I promised to share not only the great successes but also the colossal failures that are part and parcel of running a business.
Yesterday was just one of those days.
The day started off, well, off. I was on the tail-end of a week long migraine episode that finally tapered into a bearable headache. In practical terms, I was about 90% pain free, but had a serious case of post-headache stupid. In bakery terms, I probably spent five minutes staring at an egg trying to figure out what I needed to do to get the insides out, and must have made 10 return trips each to the equipment rack and the walk-in fridge because I kept forgetting things. It was a miracle that the cookie dough actually came together properly.
I also narrowly restrained myself from throwing a cheftastic tantrum because the flour bin hadn’t been refilled and nothing on the drying rack had been put away on the equipment rack. Again. Deep breaths.
Then it all went downhill.
Any guesses as to what this was?
I made three of them.
The outsides burnt.
The insides were raw.
They were DOA. Much like Oberyn Martell. (Too soon? If he had just watched The Incredibles, he would have known not to start monologuing!)
(Incidentally, that was supposed to be a cheesecake.)
Next came 90 minutes during which I was supposed to be working on Phase III, but became a cheesecake redo. I almost cried at one point. At another point, I managed to misplace my bowl scraper. I thought I had completely lost my mind (picture me spinning in circles looking for that thing that was just in my hand) only to find that I had left it in the bowl and turned the mixer on. Nothing as dire as a surgeon leaving his watch inside the patient, but it didn’t help.
And when the cheesecakes were in the oven, a scary oven alarm went off and the red screen of death started flashing indicating that a breaker had flipped and there was some sort of internal oven error. That’s never good. We fixed it, but you NEVER want to see the red screen of death. That’s why we have two ovens.
Phase III: 320 Hand-Rolled Rugelach
You read correctly. 320. Hand Rolled.
The dough was all supposed to have been rolled out last week — before I was sidelined by the aforementioned migraine…and a surprise visit from our Kashrut inspector. The roll-out was rescheduled to yesterday. Then I burned the cheesecakes and I lost the aforementioned 90 minutes to the cheesecake redo.
160 of the rugelach were done and all of a sudden, it was 4:00 – time to race home to relieve my daycare. I handed the bowls of chocolate and cinnamon sugar to my hero (my husband) and ran out the door.
When he got home, he found me asleep under a pile of children – and sent me to my own bed where sleep resumed, uninterrupted, until morning.
At the end of the day, the cheesecakes were unbelievable, the two different types of rugelach were amazing, and all was well with the world. But we all have bad days. And sometimes cheesecakes burn.
