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 Taste Editor Jean Kerr caught up with Duff Goldman, otherwise known as the Ace of Cakes, featured on the Food Network at his shop, Charm City Bakery in Baltimore, Maryland.
Your cakes are pretty extreme. Would you say that most things you do in your life are extreme?
I don’t know what the definition of extreme is, but yeah, I guess so. I don’t always do things the way things should probably be done . . . I just sort of do things, and I guess that’s extreme.
Yeah, that doesn’t really surprise me. What are some of the most bizarre occasions you’ve ever created a cake for, would you say?
Let’s see, divorce parties . . . Star Wars conventions. Doctors usually have a pretty sick sense of humor . . . ya know, graphic stuff . . . we have some gigantic things . . . lungs . . . a huge spine.
It got me wondering because I looked at the website and I saw the cake of the Titanic sinking. What was that all about?
It was for a disaster party. The people were rebuilding this house and everything was going wrong—everything, just everything. Con-tractors were skipping out, they were losing money . . . it was just nonstop problems. So they were like, all right, the theme of the party is disasters ’cause all this house has been is one giant disaster.
You’ve done amazing events for amazing people. Can you think of a person, either past or present, that you’d really like to make a cake for?
I’m going to say Mr. T.
Why? What do you think it would look like?
I’m not really sure what it would look like. It would look like whatever he wanted it to look like, but he’s pretty much the only one of my childhood heroes that hasn’t let me down. As I’ve gotten older all of my childhood heroes have gotten weird and he’s the only one that’s still cool. And that’s my answer. Well, him or [Led Zeppelin guitarist] Jimmy Page. I would like to make his guitar.
You did a cake of Gene Simmons’ [the lead singer for Kiss] face? I have to ask, who made his tongue?
Me, because everyone else was too grossed out to do it.
Do you have any recurring nightmares about some horrible cake disaster?
I have cake nightmares at least twice a week. I’ll have this dream where the cake is late and it’s not even baked yet, and it’s this crazy, really involved thing or something like that. I have those dreams all the time.
What about the reality?
We’ve dropped a few cakes. It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when. They will fall apart. If you’re going to go into this business, it’s like, if you’re going to be an ER doctor, people are going to die. If you’re going to be a cake decorator, you’re going to drop cakes.
Well at least nobody died.
Yeah, at least nobody but the cake. Then you just fix it. We have never, ever, ever gotten into a situation that we haven’t been able to fix. When something goes wrong, everyone just stops what they’re doing—fourteen of us in here—I’ll take Jess and Mary Alice out of the office, I’ll get Adam the baker out of the kitchen. Everyone will come over and start helping me, and we will remake a cake from start to finish, and with all of us working on it, we can bang something out in fifteen or twenty minutes.
On the show you focus primarily on the design and the engineering part of it, and the decorating, but what’s on the inside of the cakes?
It’s one of those things where we could probably mount a camera inside the oven, you know, find a high-heat camera or something, but baking is boring.
No, I know, it would be like watching grass grow. “Hey, look! It’s puffing up another inch!”
America’s new reality show about mowing the lawn or about shaving . . . it just doesn’t make good TV.
Actually, watching you shave could be kind of interesting.
It’s hilarious. You know, I have to do my whole head, it takes me awhile.
But actually what I was asking was, what are the flavors that you guys make? What’s underneath all the frosting?
Oh. We have tons and tons and tons [of flavors]. On the website we have about fifty, just so many.
 What are your favorites?
I’m going to say, the brownies, the peanut butter cup, the cardamom pistachio. I love the strawberry shortcake. I love the carrot cake. . . .
How would your staff describe you if you weren’t in the room? What do you think they would say?
That I’m the best boss in the universe.
If you weren’t in the room.
That I’m the best boss in the universe.
If they were going to make a cake for your hundredth birthday, and surprise you, what do you think it would look like?
Hey, Catherine, what would my hundredth birthday cake look like? “A wrinkly old ass,” Catherine says. Or another part of my anatomy, but I don’t . . .
Right, this is a family magazine; we can’t go there. . . . Of all the events that you’ve baked for, or done a cake for, are there any that are memorable for either good or bad reasons?
Oh yeah, lots. I made a cake for my sous-chef Geoff. His older brother was getting married and I made the wedding cake, and it was a knockoff of a Gustav Klimt painting, and it was really amazing. It was all golds, bronzes, and coppers. The cake came out really, really well. It was exactly what I had pictured, and sketched, and imagined. It was at a winery, and the party was in a barn, so I bring the cake and it’s like 5:30 or so. I bring the cake to the winery, so I put the cake on this wine barrel, and right when I put it down, the sun is sinking and hitting the horizon, and just as it does, it goes straight into the barn and it lights up the cake, and I am the only person there. I was looking around, and it was beautiful, and there was nobody there. . . .
Another Kodak moment gone! How do you look at the role of cakes in any kind of celebration?
The cakes themselves are really very central to a celebration. They’re not like the linen, or the flowers, or the bar, or something like that. The cake is the focus of so many things, and it’s kind of like the physical manifestation of what the party is all about, be it a wedding, a birthday, or a bar mitzvah. It can be anything. The cake really sort of embodies the spirit of a happy moment in somebody’s life—a manifestation of joy.
So what are some of the big events you guys have going on?
We did the premiere of Get Smart, in Boston and made a phone booth cake. There was a little kid who had a brain tumor, and he did the Make-a-Wish program and his wish was to go and be on the set of The Office. He went on the set and met everybody and became friends with Steve Carell. The boy has since passed away, so they did the premiere of Get Smart up there as a fundraiser for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
While we’re on the subject of good works, can you tell me about the Great American Bake Sale that you’re doing for Share Our Strength?
We made the world’s largest cupcake and the guys from Guinness Book of World Records were there to certify it. It was huge! We were at the Mall of America with Sandra Lee [Food Network’s host of Semi-Homemade]. It was 150 times the size of a normal cupcake and weighed sixty-one pounds. The frosting on the cupcake alone was sixteen pounds of butter, ten pounds of sugar, and three ounces of food coloring.
Editor’s Note: This event raised more than $10,000 for Minnesota children’s hunger charities and was sponsored by Domino Sugar and C&H Sugar. Since 2003, more than a million people have participated in the Great American Bake Sale raising nearly $4,000,000. To find out more about hosting an event in your area visit www.greatamericanbakesale.org.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Yeah, just make sure that what Catherine and Mary Alice were yelling isn’t going to be quoted in the story.
We’ll just bleep them out.
We are the only show on Food Network that gets bleeped! It’s funny because chefs are literally like dumb jocks, so it’s a very strange world . . . the professional chef world . . . people that are very energetic, incredibly talented, and very creative, and they really enjoy what they do. You have to. If you cook for a paycheck, you won’t do it for very long, but if you cook because you just love to cook, then you’ll go very far. The people who really love to cook, you get some really interesting personalities.
Thanks, Duff! Having talked to you in person it’s going to be even more fun to watch. Tell all the guys at Charm City that we love the show.
Oh cool, thank you.
Jean Kerr is the editor of Taste, the author of three cookbooks, and two-time Book of the Year Award nominee.
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