Jeffrey Adam " Duff" Goldman[Julekha Dash.
" Audacity brings chef sweet success", Baltimore Business Journal. Accessed January 20, 2007. Retrieved January 20, 2007.] His work has also been featured on the Food Network Challenge, Iron Chef America, Oprah, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Man v. Food, Buddy vs. Duff, Duff Takes the Cake, and Duff's Happy Fun Bake Time.
Early life, family and education
Goldman was born in
Detroit, to a
Jewish family. Goldman's nickname Duff came about when he was a baby.
[ "‘Raising Duff Goldman, A Mother’s Perspective by Jacqueline Winch" Retrieved August 3, 2010.] His toddler brother, Willie Goldman, was unable to pronounce Jeffrey and kept saying Duffy.
[ "710 Things You Didn't Know About... Duff " , The Food Network Retrieved on August 3, 2010.] When he was four years old, his mother caught him in her kitchen wielding a meat cleaver and watching food personality
Chef Tell.
After his parents divorced when he was ten, Goldman lived in Northern Virginia and in Sandwich, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod.[Food Network, Best Thing I Ever Ate, "Hometown Favorites", January 8, 2010.] In 1992, Goldman attended McLean High School in McLean, Virginia where he played on the Highlanders ice hockey team. In 1993, he graduated from Sandwich High School.[Goldfarb, Bruce. "The Sweet Life of Duff Goldman" , Welcome To Baltimore Hon, September 14, 2009. Retrieved on August 3, 2010.]
At the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), he earned a bachelor's degree in East Asian History with a minor in Ethics. Thereafter, he attended Corcoran College of Art and the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley, California.
Early career
From age fourteen, he began to work in kitchens; his first job was at a bagel store at a mall.
[Food Network's Chefology teaser, August 9, 2009] Goldman also worked as a fry cook at McDonald's. Goldman has said that when he was a sophomore in college, he went to the Baltimore restaurant Charleston, which he considered the finest restaurant in Baltimore. Aspiring to be a cook there, he applied. 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
only, and this is what Goldman cites as the turning point in his career.
He worked under acclaimed chefs in California, including a stagiaire position at the
French Laundry and as executive pastry chef of the Vail Cascade Hotel in
Colorado,
he returned to Washington, D.C., to work at Todd English's restaurant, Olives,
baking bread.
Charm City Cakes
In 2002, Goldman made forays into the food industry when he started his own business by opening his own bakery called Charm City Cakes. Initially, his cake sales began as he worked out of his house in Charles Village in Baltimore, Maryland, with the help of two assistants he employed.
As demand grew, he hired more employees, hiring painters, architects, and sculptors to work on the development and expansion of his bakery.
Charm City Cakes frequently uses
cutting torch, as well as power tools such as grinders and drills to help create the underlying supports of cakes.
Goldman has made cakes for former President Barack Obama during his second inaugural ball in 2013,
Cookbooks
Goldman has written three cookbooks:
Ace of Cakes: Inside the World of Charm City Cakes,
Duff Bakes: Think and Bake Like a Pro at Home, and
Super Good Baking for Kids.
Other televised appearances
In 2022, Goldman competed in season seven of
The Masked Singer as "McTerrier" of Team Good. After the performance of
Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend", McTerrier's mask accidentally came off and he had to shield his head while the panelists shielded their eyes until a crew member had to run out and put the mask back on. He was the first to be eliminated.
Goldman is a judge on several Food Network cooking competitions, such as Holiday Baking Championship, Spring Baking Championship and Kids Baking Championship. He co-hosted the last show with Valerie Bertinelli from seasons 1-12, and with Kardea Brown in season 13.
Duff has appeared in Guy's Grocery Games - most notably the episode titled Delivery: All-Star Hanukkah, in which he competed against Aaron May and Eric Greenspan, and the judges were Antonia Lofaso, Catherine McCord, and Jonathan Waxman, all of whom are of Jewish descent, except for Ms. McCord, whose husband is Jewish.
Personal life
As of 2021, Goldman lives in Los Angeles, California. He played bass guitar in an indie-rock band called "...soihadto...".
He later became the bass player in the band Foigrock (a play on
foie gras and rock and roll). He states his alternate dream job would be to perform as a bass player with the band Clutch. Goldman has made a wedding cake for Clutch's lead singer,
Neil Fallon.
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.
[Alan H. Feiler, "Flour Power", Baltimore Jewish Times, March 2, 2007.]
Goldman is Jewish and enjoys giving back to the community.[ Views, hillel.org. September 20, 2007.]
In 2012, Goldman lost toes in a motorcycle accident.
On April 2, 2018, Goldman proposed to Johnna Colbry,
Filmography
-
Cake Masters (2016-)
-
Duff Till Dawn (2015)
-
Ace of Cakes (2006-2011)
-
Holiday Baking Championship (2014-)
-
Imagination movers (2006)
-
Iron Chef America (2005)
-
Kids Baking Championship (2014-)
-
Spring Baking Championship (2015-)
-
Worst Bakers in America (2016-)
-
Dessert Games (2017-)
-
Buddy vs. Duff (2019-)
-
Duff Takes the Cake (2019-)
-
Double Dare (2019)
-
Ryan's Mystery Playdate (2019)
-
Unfiltered (2020)
-
Duff's Happy Fun Bake Time (2021)
-
The Masked Singer (2022)
-
A Gingerbread Christmas (2022)
-
Summer Baking Championship (2023-)
-
Guy's Grocery Games Delivery
-
The Tiny Chef Show (2025)
Awards and nominations
|
|
| 2023 | Children's and Family Emmy Awards | Outstanding Host | Kids Baking Championship
| |
