Finger vs douille cannelee

So every day I make mignardises, which are bite-sized desserts, sometimes referred to as petits-fours. Our mignardises are choux pastries cut in half and topped off. We make two varieties of these pastries. Creamy ones topped with chocolate decor, and chantilly ones topped with a fruit puree gelee sphere. We make three flavors of each type: caramel, chocolate, vanilla, coconut, violette, and pistachio. Usually we make about 25 of each, totaling 150 choux to cut and fill. You keeping up? Today we had about 185 of each. Yes. That's well over 1100 little pieces of crap to assemble. And a lot of piping.

I'm generally in charge of piping all the chantilly cream for the mignardises, since I've been there the longest and probably make the best looking rosaces (or swirls of chantilly) in the least amount of time. What do we use to make them? Piping bag and a douille cannelee. Whats this fancy sounding thing you ask? Nothing more than a star pastry tip. Yeah I know it doesn't look very dangerous unless you jab it into someones eye.

Well today, in my mad harried state to finish all of the mignardises, I quickly used my finger to pierce the piping bag to pull out the douille. End result? A normal piece of pastry equipment quickly turned into a chinese finger trap. My poor index finger was jammed so far into the pastry tip that i couldn't pull it out without getting jabbed by the pointy teeth. I tried to get a new stagiaire to help me, but she had no idea what to do. The pastry tip was stuck, and hurt like a @#$%! when I pulled at it. A coworker tried to help by saying "okay you're going to scream".. thinking I'd let him rip it off my finger. I don't think he realized it had pierced my skin. Luckily enough for me, today I worked with the nicest chef-de-partie, and he got a knife to bend back the pastry tip teeth to release my finger. Not one of my smartest moves at work.

On a positive note, my finger is still intact, and tomorrow we only have about 500 mignardises to do.