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Arts & Entertainment

Oheka Castle's Super Pastry Chef

Daniel Andreotti talks about making celebrity wedding cakes.

He never thought he'd be baking wedding cakes for celebrities, but Oheka Castle's executive pastry chef Daniel Andreotti has a career doing just that. He reflected on his memories of creating unique wedding cakes and pastries at Oheka Castle in Huntington recently for Patch.

"Baking was always a first love... when the holidays came, I used to bake with Mom... it was always something that meant a lot to me, so I thought I would always use it as a hobby. I certainly never thought it would be a career," says Andreotti. He says he always expected to be a doctor or lawyer.

After graduating from college, Andreotti had the opportunity to buy a bakery. He jumped in with no formal training in baking other then his home experience. "I thought I'm young enough let me take a chance…let me try the baking industry from a business perspective. I got my hands into it and had no idea what I was doing. It's very different baking at home and baking professionally."

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Realizing he didn't have enough money to hire full time professionals, Andreotti says he hired a lot of older retired bakers from the community. He says he learned there's no substitute for experience. "That was greatly to my benefit, because, they were the old time bakers, the Old World type baking. I really got the best kind of training. I learned through the school of hard knocks. It was mostly do or die. I couldn't fail at this … once I really got into it I found I had a knack for it, a natural talent… I really believe that if anybody perseveres at anything and has the slightest talent they can set themselves apart from everyone else."

Fourteen years ago, Andreotti took on another career challenge by accepting the position as Oheka Castle's pastry chef. "Oheka was a lucky find for me... The greatest learning tool for me was being thrown into this arena."

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At the time, Oheka was still in the process of being restored by owner and developer Gary Melius. Andreotti says as Oheka grew, so did his professional experience. "I was the only guy here when I started 14 years ago. I have a team of 7 people plus myself now."

 

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