I made some bread Saturday morning to take to our ward Christmas party that night and it turned out pretty good. I did leave it in the oven a little too long so the crust was a little thicker then I wanted it to be, but all in all it was very good. It went very fast at the dinner, a few people asked me some questions about bread that would not usually talk to me. I still think it's a little weird when people ask me questions about baking, but what's even more amazing is that I can usually answer their questions. I guess I'm not giving myself enough credit, that should come with more confidence I guess.



Baked in the new-to-us oven that I am very pleased with. After taking it out of the oven, I spread butter on the top to give it a nice crisp crust.

The practical final did not go like I wanted it too. The important thing is I learned things from it. One thing I learned is that I need to keep my head in the game at all times, as they say. In the morning before class started I got really frazzled for a number of reasons none of which were good enough to make me so nervous, but I have anxiety issues when it comes to people scrutinizing what I'm doing. Lets just say I made a lot of stupid mistakes and because of that I was getting frustrated with myself and making more mistakes. The bread that I made was terrible.

But the important part of this whole class is that I learn, and oh boy did I learn some things. Bread making is definitely an art, one that I would like to master, but this is going to take a lot longer then one semester of bread class, especially when that's not all we learned in this class.
I learned that I have to be well organized in my mind as well as on paper,(recipes, agenda, time schedules and everything else you can think of). I can't rely on others to do anything, really. If I can't do it right myself then I may as well go home.
I learned that planning is essential to running a successful bakery. If someone needs an order of bread at noon, you can't start at 9:am and expect to get it done with no problems, anyway it takes more time then that when there's no deadline.
I learned that I have to trust in myself more and believe that what I'm doing is right and not second guess myself, because that's when doubt creeps into my mind.
I learned that making bread has to be done by feel and factors change every day, you can't go by the book all the time. You have to use your head and common sense.

I saw a video about the art of making bread and they had this little old lady on it and she said bread is love. It's like a loaf of love, or something like that. I have to agree with her and expand it to all baking and pastries, because for me it is, its a little part of me. I think that's why I got so frustrated with myself when I screwed up in class. Because I take a lot of pride at what I'm trying to do and it was a real good eye opener that I still have a lot to learn which I knew and will say I am still excited about.

I had another class before the practical final. We made Challah bread (which is a Jewish holiday bread) and man was that some good bread. Linda ate half a loaf within a half hour of when she got home. We also learned how to do a six strand braid knot, an easy thing to do but I think it turned out pretty good.

We also made bread sticks.

It's been a long tome since my last post. We had our holiday baking class then Thanksgiving. My little Lydia had her 4th birthday and now I'm in the last week of regular classes. With finals coming up next week, you can bet I've been really busy.

For the class before Thanksgiving we made some holiday desserts. We made three different kinds of pies; apple, pumpkin, and peanut butter. They were all very good. The peanut butter pie was a bit too rich for me, but Linda loved it. We also made more cinnamon rolls along with apple cinnamon raisin bread, which I still forgot to bring home somehow so I'll have to make that after school is over. We also made some nut roll and poppy seed roll which were both very good.

On Tuesday we made quick breads in class, in my group we made Scones, Corn muffins, and Chocolate chip muffins. There were a lot of other kinds of muffins and breads made but basically, the flavors were banana, blueberry, pumpkin and nut. We also made some plane biscuits, tea biscuits, and cheese and herb biscuits. Needless to say we came home with lots of goodies! We learned three different types of mixing methods the biscuit method namely for making biscuits and the like. The muffin method for making muffins pancakes and waffle type things. And, last but not least, the creaming method. This method can be used for muffins and other types of quick breads. The main thing with quick breads is to not over mix (the teacher made this point very adamantly).

I had my birthday yesterday. As funny as it sounds I made two apple pies, on Saturday morning, to go to Mom's house to celebrate my sister in-law and my birthday. We had lots of yummy apple desserts. Saturday we had apple dumplings, that my sister in-law made; they were really good by the way!! Then on Sunday everyone sang to both of us and we had apple pie and ice cream as well as a jello poke cake. I got a really nice tie from my youngest sister.
It was a very nice weekend. We all had a lot of fun. Other then an incident with my daughter and the emergency room. My youngest daughter had an ear infection that we did not catch and Saturday her ear started oozing. So needless to say we took her to the hospital and she is now on antibiotics and getting better (I think more because the pressure on her ear is not there, but what do I know).

Here are the two pies I made, they tasted better then they look and they look pretty good to me.

I've had pretty bad cold the last few days, so I have not been able to post anything for a while. The week before last we made yeast Doughnuts and cake Doughnuts some of the Yeast raised doughnuts were filled with Bavarian cream with a chocolate glaze, those were amazing. I ate one of the glazed Krispy Kreme style doughnuts in class, and they were melt in your mouth good. I gave most of the doughnuts that I brought home away so I wouldn't turn into a blimp. Each student in the class took home around 22 doughnuts, that's why I gave half of them away.

Last week we made Danish dough and soft pretzels. The pretzels were a lot easier to make then I thought they would be, and forming them was fun.
The Danish dough we had to do over the span of two classes because of time constraints, so last week we made the dough and rolled in the fat (we used a combination of butter and high ratio shortening) and then we gave the dough three, three folds this gives the Danish dough 135 layers, which also gives it the flakiness.

This week we made up the Danishes and Croissants from the dough we made last week. We made several different types; some with filling, some without. But each one came out flaky and yummy. As I described in the slide show to the right, we made some really good looking pastries and they tasted as good or better then they looked.

Feel free to make any and all comments, I love to hear them.

I know It's been a long time. All I can say is I have mid terms and have been very busy.

Last Friday was a very interesting day. It was the ribbon cutting and dedication ceremony of the new culinary arts building at LCCC in downtown Nanticoke. I volunteered to help in the Pastry Arts kitchen.

The pastry department, had some Sara Lee deserts donated and we plated those along with the deserts that our department made. We made bite size Cream Puffs and Eclairs, along with Florentine with sliced Almonds. The chocolate room was pumping out lots of amazing little deserts like Tiramisu filled chocolate cups along with chocolate tulips filled with white and milk chocolate moose, along with the infamous chocolate covered strawberry's. It was an amazing day, there were in my own estimation, over 300 people that came.

I learned a lot about a lot of different things. The main one being people LOVE dessert and will always eat them, if you have an appealing presentation along with quality food to back it up, no matter how much food they had previously consumed.

Another thing I learned is that, giving a way free samples generates ten fold more business then any other advertising could ever accomplish.

The greatest thing about all this seemingly exhausting hard work is that I had so much fun despite the fact that I crashed when I got home.

On Tuesday I had my intro to pastry and bread class at Luzerne County Community College. We made Ciabatta bread, wow that is some good stuff. We also made sour rye rolls, sour pumpernickel bread, along with Fougasse bread. We learned about artisan breads, and using poolish and other types of starters to make the different types of breads. I posted a slide show of different things that I like and the picture of the breads with the bowl of potato soup are the breads we made in class Tuesday.

The other pictures are places I've been or things I've made, along with my two kids. I really love my girls they make me laugh everyday.


My oldest is always ready to pose for a picture and more importantly, eat the yummy treats I bring home.

What can I say about class that I haven't said already. I am really glad I am doing this. Today we made Calzones, Pagach bread, some with Cabbage and onions and some w/ potatoes. We also made Focaccia bread. I think it would go great with stewed tomatoes or some type of marinara sauce. another thing I am very happy about is that I got a 100% on the quiz that took last week, was not expecting that.

The focaccia bread I think I can do with out but the other things we made in class I really like. The calzones I've had before and those were good but the Pagach bread, stuffed with cabbage and onions, was particularly good warm.





since I didn't post last week. here is a quick rundown of what we made. We made Stromboli and three different types of Pizza. All were very good. I gave my mom the recipe who gave it to my sister, so needless to say, Chef Nemetz' pizza formula is now all across the country.

I had another bread class, we made sweet dough. With this sweet dough, we made cinnamon sugar and regular sugar puff balls we made cinnamon buns, sticky buns, monkey bread and Apple cinnamon raisin bread. I didn't get a loaf of apple cinnamon raisin bread because I was cleaning and getting things put away that I forgot about that then left without it. but I will say this, I am glad that I have good friends in my class because I probably wouldn't get any bread cause I'm always cleaning at the end of class. I get concentrated on what I'm doing I don't always remember to get stuff before class time runs out.

Today my teacher asked me why I changed from the career that I had before I came to school to become a pasty chef. Which I might add is a big change in direction,
architectural draftsman to pastry chef. The truth of it is that I LOVE BAKING! I grew up with great mentors. My mother, whom I love has always been a huge inspiration in my life and was a very good teacher. Learning to bake and cook a large variety of things from her was, now that I look back on it, an amazing and really fun time. I remember going to my grandparents house and helping my Gram and Pap cook and bake. My Pap Smethers was an amazing man. I really wish he was still alive. I think he would be proud of my decision to follow my heart on this great adventure. My Gram Smethers is also an amazing lady, she still bakes all kinds of great stuff I will not list cause it will take forever.

The thing I find that's funny is that after only having four classes (in which we learn how to make bread and other pastries) in the kitchen, learning from the teacher, my mother and brother who is also a great baker of many fine things, come to me to ask questions. This both humbles and amazes me, because up until this point I had gone to them with questions.

The bottom line and most important reason I have started down this road I'm on is that I've prayed to our Heavenly Father and received inspiration that this choice is the most correct for me and my family. I know He will protect me and my family in the years to come because I have gone to Him in faith and am doing what I can to live in accordance to His will. And yes there is always room for improvement.

I had a great day at school today, we had a make up lab to make up for one we missed due to the new building not being ready. Today we made bagels and some other kinds of breads. we learned how to do a three strand braid and how to make bagels by hand. what a great day. I am really enjoying learning about the different aspects of backing bread. I never knew there were so many different variables that went into great bread.

We made four different types of bread in class today, we made Cheese bread with pepperoni, 100%Whole Wheat Bread, Sweet Rye Bread, and Onion Garlic Dill bread. In my group we were in charge of the cheese bread from the mixing to the baking. Class really goes fast and I find myself wishing for more time to learn from our teacher. As you would expect from someone whose been in the business for 30 years, he really knows his stuff, and more importantly he knows how to teach it.


Here is a picture of the breads we did in class

Today was the first day we were able to get into the kitchen at school and we made three different types of breads. We made white bread as a class, each group gathering a different ingredient and combined them as we learned how to use the mixers and the other types of equipment in the kitchen.
In our groups of two we made french and italian bread. My group made french bread. We learned what a proofer/retarder is for and we baked in a deck oven, which was pretty cool, I had never done that before. Then at the end of the day, we got to bring three loaves of bread home. The family and I have already eaten one and a half loaves. I'm going to have to take a bike ride tommorrow to get rid of the extra calories.

French Bread



The proofer that we used is a proofer/retarder. The proofer helpes in the fermentation of the dough. It gives the glutin in the bread one last boost of energy, if you will, before it goes in the oven. The retarder is, namely, what it is. It retards the fermentation of the dough so you can bake it hours later, like the next day.

White Bread



Class went really well in my opinion. I learned a lot and before I knew it, class was over. I can't complain about getting fresh bread either. I'm really glad I'm following this path laid out before me, what a great adventure.

Here is a picture of the carrot cake I made, I think it turned out looking pretty good.

Delivering a carrot cake tomorrow, I hope he likes it. Will post a picture of it soon.

I also got myself a new toy to play with, I got a Wilton cake turn table, I love it. That is one of the greatest inventions. Not sure how I did things with out it.

19 Jars of chopped tomatoes canned last night, at my mom's house. We still have lots of tomatoes to do yet.

My first week of school is almost over, one more day left. My bread class is going to be great, I can't wait to get started baking. We are going to learn a ton of great techniques that I always wanted to know. Like that six braided french bread, and how to make puff pastrie dough, and lots of other cool stuff. It's going to be great!

First day of School on Monday, It's going to be a busy week this week, I have more tomatoes to do. I canned 23 jars of sauce last week and the tomatoes are still coming on strong with lots of big Fruit. We want to can the rest as stewed tomatoes and just crushed tomatoes. Should be Interesting.

Hi everyone,
I'm starting school on Monday. I'm very excited and at the same time a little nervous to start all this new stuff.

I have an order for a carrot cake, looking forward to baking that, I never baked one on my own. hope it turns out good. I have a good recipe just need time to make it.

going to Hershey Park tomorrow with free tickets from Chevy everything's better free.

I made Chocolate chocolate chip muffins for Linda today they turned out good but all the chips sunk down to the bottom. I'm going to have to work on the batter to get them to stay suspended during baking. My batter may have been too runny though, muffin batter makes better muffins when it's lumpy.

I sold two pies on Saturday, hopefully the first of many. I made a sour Cherry and a Rhubarb crumb top. I sold them to a guy at church and I am happy to say he was raving over them the next day. I am very pleased with the way they came out. the pictures i posted are of the pies I sold. The crumb top is the Rhubarb as i said and the other is the sour cherry.

To you people that make all those amazing fondant flowers; "I salute you"! I definitely need more practice with the fondant. My sister showed me how to make a rose out of fondant and mine looked like, well I'm not sure what it looked like. I didn't take any pictures because it was late and I needed to get home, plus they looked terrible. Needless to say, I will continue practicing as often as I can and will take some pictures the next time, I promise.

My sister Katie and I are making fondant flowers for a cake on Saturday. not sure how many flowers, but I'm still looking forward to finally having the time to actually get some things started. will post pictures when i get them.

Today is Father's Day. My wife got me a 28 piece set of tips for pipping butter cream icing and a spatula. I'm excited to start practicing flowers and leaves. I need to work on my lettering too. This should be interesting.

This is my very first blog post ever. i am working toward opening a pie parlor for lack of better words. i have started on the logo and business cards and menu going to work on pricing next. here is a picture of my business card.