Duff Goldman is no ordinary pastry chef. As the owner of Charm City Cakes in Baltimore and Charm City Cakes West in Los Angeles, he uses blowtorches and power drills to sculpt custom-made creations for clients. Preservation spoke with Goldman, the host of the Food Network’s Ace of Cakes and Duff Till Dawn, about his love of history and his architecture-inspired cakes.
It’s in an old church that was built in the 1890s. But it’s been so many different things: a sewing factory, a wine bar, an art gallery. There was a small kitchen inside, and the first thing we did was expand it. The building needed quite a bit of work to get it back into shape, but it was totally worth it.
Yes. I knew I wanted to be a chef, but I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. I thought I should take classes in subjects that interested me. The thing about history is that it’s fun stories—fun stories that really happened.
I’d love to be an artist in Italy in the 1400s. The Renaissance was such an exciting time. There were all these new ideas. People were studying nature, art, anatomy, new forms of government.
You make so many interesting cakes—volcanoes, animals, cars. Do you ever make ones of old buildings?
When people order a cake, they want something that means something to them, and a lot of times that’s a building or a place. Maybe something personal happened to them there, or it represents where they’re from.
We’ve done a lot of baseball stadiums, like Wrigley Field and Fenway Park. We’ve done the Taj Mahal. We just did a 100-square-foot model of downtown Baltimore.
You look at the building in totality, and you think about the things that make it that particular building. When you take a building and shrink it down to 2 feet high, you’re going to lose a lot of detail. You can’t make every single brick or every single window.
So you pick the most important things and put them in the right place and at the right size. Then you draw [the design] from the front, the back, the top, the sides, and you make templates.
We’ve done the United States Capitol Building several times, and I’ve never been 100 percent satisfied with the outcome. It’s a very difficult building. I’d really like another crack at it.
Online Extra: Architecture-Inspired Cakes
Baker and Food Network star Duff Goldman can turn anything into a cake — including historic buildings.
Lauren Walser served as the Los Angeles-based field editor of Preservation magazine. She enjoys writing and thinking about art, architecture, and public space, and hopes to one day restore her very own Arts and Crafts-style bungalow.
Duff Goldman On Why We’ll Never See A Return Of Ace Of Cakes
Who is Duff Goldman?
Duff Goldman is a legend worth looking up to. The celebrity chef began his journey in the food industry as a McDonald’s fry cook in the 1980s when he was a student and is now one of the most popular bakers around.
Does Duff Goldman make a commission?
We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. Bakery owner and TV chef Duff Goldman is known for his creatively-constructed cakes — from boxes of crayons, to Betty White, to a spinning R2-D2 for George Lucas — but the intrigue of the Ace of Cakes reaches far beyond his sensibility for sweets.
How did David Goldman get his start?
If you’ve ever wondered how the celebrity pastry chef got his start, you’ll be impressed to learn his origin story is actually very normal. According to his biography on Food Network, Goldman has been cooking since he was just 4 years old, when his mother caught him wielding a meat cleaver while watching a chef on television.
What lessons did Goldman learn from Stephen Durfee?
Goldman is also thankful for the lessons he learned from pastry chef Stephen Durfee. As he shared, he respects Durfee’s talent and approach towards food thanks in part to the fact that he came from a background that involved preparing savory dishes.