Q&A: Duff Goldman

We are in a sweet-tooth renaissance, where high-end pastry shops, dessert bars and sugary tasting menus are all the rage. In cities around the country, sweet makers are pushing the limits of sugary temptation, giving desserts from cupcakes to custards to chocolate the haute makeover.

In the world of cakes, the bar is being set by Food Network star Duff Goldman, whose show “Ace of Cakes” highlights his adapted skills as a sculptor and graffiti artist to create everything from sugary battleships for returning military men to old-school printing presses for newspaper parties.

As the Baltimore-based cake maker gets ready to host SWEET, the main sugar event at the upcoming NYC Wine & Food Festival, we chatted him up about the modern cake, the kitchen at his cake shop, Charm City Cakes, and what he plans to create for colleagues and fans at the late-night dessert tasting on Oct. 11.

What are your duties as host of the SWEET event?
I am going to be hanging out by my cake and talking to people about sugar, which isn’t really that hard to do. I am making a cake and I am going to hang out and have a good time.

What are you going to make?
I’m still looking at designs. I am looking to do something a little abstract, something a little different. I’ve been talking to the people at the Food Network about [whether or not to do] a New York City landscape. I told them, “People know we can do that.” I would rather do something totally different.

How long does it take to make a cake from start to finish?
When you’re making a cake, you actually work backwards. You make the decorations first and then the cake. Typically, cakes can take three days to three weeks, and sometimes longer. When we made the cake for the premiere of “Harry Potter,” we had to pull images off of DVDs and we had to do some conceptual stuff first and make sure we knew what we were doing before we started.

What’s the biggest misconception people have about making cakes?
That designing cakes is easy. Designing cakes is one of the most challenging jobs I have ever had in the world of cooking.

How many cakes do you guys make a week?
We make 15 cakes a week. It’s a cake per decorator, or a cake per employee.

Your thoughts on the show?
People learn stuff from us, but we are not teaching people how to decorate cakes. The real personalities are the cakes and the city of Baltimore.

What’s the reaction from the rest of the cake-making world?
We get e-mails from other bakeries saying, “What are you guys doing?!” They are mad and at the same time they are happy because people see that decorating a cake is a very long, laborious process.

So they’re a little jealous.
We’re not making a whole bunch of money just because we’re on TV. It’s not the most lucrative job in the world. Our profit margin is relatively slim. There is no combating that conception. People think that you can charge what you want because you’re on TV, but we have to compete like all others.

Have you guys ever turned down a cake?
All the time. Sometimes things are not in good taste or we’re just not interested in doing it. Or if you get the feeling from the client that they just want to be on TV. We want people to come here for the cake first and to be on TV second. We are cake decorators first.

Who is your favorite cake maker?
I would say that [New York City cake maker] Colette Peters is probably my favorite. Whenever I have a question, or one of guys has a question, we call her. She’s probably like, “You should buy my books, but since you don’t have them I will tell you anyway.” Her, and [“Cakewalk” author] Margaret Braun.

Is there anything you’ve wanted to try out while making a cake?
We definitely try everything. We’ve done pneumatics in cake, but we haven’t done hydraulics yet. Maybe that’s our next challenge. Beyond that, making things levitate.


SWEET hits La.Venue at the Waterfont on Oct. 11 at 9 p.m. For tickets, visit www.nycwineandfoodfestival.com.