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Duff Goldman

Born	December 17, 1974 (1974-12-17) (age 35) Detroit, Michigan, USA
Education	University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Corcoran College of Art and Design, Culinary Institute of America

Jeffery Adam "Duff" Goldman (born December 17, 1974) is the star of the Food Network reality television show Ace of Cakes. He is a baker and food artist who has been described as both audacious and creative.^[1] He owns a cake shop in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., known as Charm City Cakes. His work and talent have also been featured on the Food Network Challenge, Iron Chef America, Oprah , and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Early life

Goldman is Jewish.^[2] From the age of fourteen, he began to work in kitchens, his first job being at a Bagel Store at a mall.^[3]Goldman was born in Detroit, Michigan, and later moved to Kansas. When he was four, his mother caught him in her kitchen wielding a meat cleaver and watching food personality Chef Tell.^[4] After the divorce of his parents when he was ten, Goldman spent time living in both Northern Virginia and in the town of Sandwich on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.^[5] Years later, he attended the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Goldman has said that when he was a sophomore in college, he went to what he considered the finest restaurant in Baltimore, Charleston, where he was inspired to apply as a cook there. The head chef, Cindy Wolf, looked at his résumé and noted that it consisted of irrelevant experience. However, Cindy did offer him a job to make cornbread and biscuits only, and this is what Goldman cites as the turning point in his career.^[6] He received his undergraduate education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County where he graduated with a degree in East Asian History with a minor in ethics. Shortly after, he attended schools such as Corcoran College of Art and the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley, California. After working under acclaimed chefs in California, including a job at the French Laundry and the Vail Cascade Hotel in Colorado, he returned to Washington, D.C., to work at the Olives restaurant baking bread.

Charm City Cakes

Charm City Cakes

In 2000, Goldman opened his own business called Charm City Cakes. Initially, his cake sales began as he worked out of his house in Charles Village with the help of two assistants he employed.^[1] As the requests for his unusual cakes increased, he hired more employees – many of whom did not have any culinary experience as pastry chefs, but were instead experienced painters, architects, and sculptors.^[7] Today, Goldman's bakery shop is unusual in that blow torches, as well as power tools such as grinders and drills, are used to help form the underlying supports of the unique edible creations. With his crew, Goldman has done unusual cakes such as the likenesses of Elvis in the form of a 3-foot butter cream sculpture, an anatomically correct ear, a smoking volcano, a three-dimensional German Shepherd, as well as a replica of a CAT scan machine, a jeep, and an edible Wrigley Field.

Goldman has made cakes for a number of celebrities including Tom Clancy, the cast of Lost, and Sir Roger Moore^[8]

In October 2009, Goldman and his brother Willie released the book Ace of Cakes: Inside the World of Charm City Cakes from HarperCollins/William Morrow, an exhaustive look at both the bakery and the show.

Personal life

Goldman lives in Baltimore, Maryland. He plays bass guitar in the instrumental indie rock band ...soihadto... (so I had to). The band releases their first album in Feb, 2010 on Grape Juice Records. He claims his alternate dream job would be to perform as bass player with the band Clutch. Goldman has made a wedding cake for Clutch's lead singer, Neil Fallon.^[9][10]. In addition, Fallon's younger sister and Goldman's friend from college, Mary Alice Fallon-Yeskey, works at Charm City Cakes as the office manager.^[11]

Goldman also officially entered the Guinness Book of World Records for baking the world's largest cupcake on March 30, 2008. The massive entirely edible cupcake weighed in at 27.85kg and was over 300mm tall. It was reportedly 150 times the size of a regular cupcake and required 16 pounds of butter, 10 pounds of sugar, and three ounces of food coloring. The record-breaking pastry was created to support the Great American Bake Sale, which raised $10,000 and awareness for the Share Our Strength charity. However, as reported in a 2009 episode of Ace of Cakes, Goldman was stripped of the record due to the cupcake having been made in two parts.

Acting Career

Goldman has made a few notable guest appearances on various TV shows. In 2009 Goldman made an appearance on Jon and Kate Plus 8 in the episodes Kate's Birthday Surprise and Sun, Seashells and Scrapes during the show's fifth season. Also in 2009 after doing a cake for the cast and crew of King of the Hill. Duff and Geoff were invited to do the voice for two characters in the episode, To Sirloin with Love where Bobby Hill joined the Meat Examination Team. Goldman made a guest appearance on an episode of The Imagination Movers as Baker Ben, the Muffin Man in late 2009. In 2010 Duff is going to play the role of clown in a movie, called Below the Beltway, that is in post-production.^[12]

References

External links

• "Charm City Cakes" - Official Website
• Duff Goldman – Food Network article
• Ace of Cakes - from the Food Network
• ...soihadto... - Web site of the band Goldman is a member of