Things You Probably Don't Know About Duff Goldman

Duff Goldman announced that he is expecting his first child with his wife, Joanna Colbry, with an Instagram post in August 2019. The photo nods to the Food Network star's affinity for sweets (and the even sweeter nickname he calls his wife), with he and Colbry each holding up a muffin while cheekily placing a mini muffin in front of Joanna's stomach — smiling from ear to ear. His caption didn't give too much away, simply reading: "MUFFINS!," but luckily Colbry broke the big news on her account, posting the same photo with the caption "Our biggest adventure yet! Mini Muffin expected January 2021!"

The pair dated for three years before tying the knot in January 2019. "When I proposed to her, it was just so obvious. I was just like, 'Of course we're getting married.' I never wanted kids and now I'm just like, 'Of course we're going to have kids!'," the chef tells People magazine. "Everything changed. My whole worldview changed. A weight was lifted." Between his chosen profession and the tender love he shares with his wife, there's sure to be much more sweetness ahead as the Goldmans welcome their new addition into the family.

Although his intricate cake creations take meticulous planning, Duff Goldman's decision to pop the question to his now-wife was made at the spur of the moment. The baking extraordinaire didn't select a ring beforehand, so he improvised with a fitting substitute given his culinary background: kitchen twine. "I didn't plan this out, it just happened and it was so glaringly obvious that I couldn't have stopped it if I wanted to," the Ace of Cakes gushed in the caption of an Instagram photo showing off his fiancee's ring finger. "I asked her to marry me. She said yes. I cannot imagine a state of happiness that is more intense than whatever I'm feeling right now." The renowned pastry chef popped the question hours after an Easter dinner with his future wife's family — asking her parent's permission before he got down on one knee.

Based on the location given on the announcement Instagram post, the sweet proposal happened near Santa Monica, California, which is a stone's throw away from the west coast location of his iconic Charm City Cakes. The pair has been together since 2016 after meeting on Tinder, bonding over their shared love of art and, of course, dessert (via LA Times). With such a spontaneous and romantic proposal, there's no doubt the couple's life together is a treat.

The rocker-turned-baker was once a member of several Baltimore-based bands, such as Big Mama Cotton Crotch, soihadto, Danger Ice, and Two-Day Romance — an emo punk group that once performed with Linkin Park and was nearly signed by Sony. Duff Goldman made such a splash on the scene that he was asked to audition for another band based out of Seattle. "I tried out, and it went well, but they decided to go with somebody else," he told Delish. "So I went back to Baltimore and opened a bakery instead."

Running his own kitchen allowed Goldman the chance to go on tour with his band while pursuing his passion for baking in between stints on the road. Many of Charm City's employees also have musical connections: "That's the way the bakery was built—it was a bunch of dudes in rock and jazz bands who wanted to pursue a rock career," he told Delish. "We weren't trying to be good on television; we were trying to be good in bands." Now, the pastry chef shreds as the bassist of the L.A. group Foie Grock — an alternative cover band composed of fellow chefs and culinary tastemakers playing tracks from the likes of Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters and Alice in Chains.

Food Network fans have long been familiar with the Ace of Cake's creative creations, but Duff Goldman got even more exposure when he was recruited to bake the cakes for the lyric video of Katy Perry's 2014 hit "Birthday." The video was shot in his Cakemix Bakery & DIY Decorating studio in L.A., and featured song lyrics scrawled in flour, plastered across rolling pins, and penned in icing on cakes shaped like everything from kittens to hamburgers. According to People, once he received word that his baking skills were needed for the project, Goldman and 12 of his staffers dreamed up a wide range of unique designs that would be right at home in Perry's whimsical world, with less than one week to craft all of the confections.

Perry's team offered some specific concepts for the cakes, but Goldman had "free rein" with the remainder of the desserts. "It was a real collaboration," Goldman tells People. "The Cakemix staff was working with the producer and director, who would say, 'We need this lyric written out in frosting,' or, 'Can we get this done with food coloring?' It was a really intense affair, putting it all together, but really cool — it made us feel like a part of what they were doing." At the end of the shoot, the production team was allowed to take the cakes home with them — a pretty sweet deal.

The pastry prince moved around the country a handful of times during his childhood and lived in locations such as Detroit and Virginia, but spent some of his most formative years in a quaint Cape Cod beach town. "When people ask me where I'm from, I say Sandwich," Duff Goldman says in a telephone interview with the Cape Cod Times. "It's my favorite place."

Goldman relocated to Sandwich in 1991 after his sophomore year of high school and immediately felt at home with the town's laid-back vibe. He helped rebuild cars and boat engines here before trading pliers for a piping bag — learning how to work with his hands (via the Cape Cod Times). The chef also had one of his most hilarious food experiences at the local slice spot Sandwich Pizza, making and delivering pies to hungry patrons. "They wouldn't let me deliver too much, though, because the phone number of the pizza place is on the back of the truck and I drove like a maniac," the chef relays to Zagat. "Cape Cod in the summertime is full of tourists, so everyone driving around on their vacation needs to stop and look at every freakin' leaf in New England — and I'm trying to deliver a pizza! So I was driving on the wrong side of the road, passing people on lawns." We're sure the culinary creative is much more careful when transporting his cake creations.

With an artist mother who sculpts everything from ceramics to stained glass and a grandmother who dabbled in silversmithing, printmaking, and painting (via The Jerusalem Post), it's no wonder the pastry whiz inherited some serious art chops. Before he was crafting images out of icing and trimmings from fondant, he expressed his creativity in a more rebellious art form: graffiti (or, "mural art" as he referred to it around his mother). In his early high school days, the chef was enrolled part time in D.C.'s Corcoran college of Art + Design to keep him out of trouble, but that didn't stop Duff Goldman from pursuing his painting later on.

"When my mom found out I was a graffiti artist, she completely freaked out," Goldman tells Spoon University. "There's this really cool overpass. It's a twenty-foot wide bridge, and if you go underneath it, there's a three-foot concrete step in front of this wall. After I took her to this place she was completely torn. She wanted to be mad because graffiti is illegal, but she was also blown away and proud because she's an artist herself." Based on his intricate creations, applying his art skills to icing proved to be a piece of cake for Goldman.

Though it may seem unconventional, Duff Goldman's signature reverse baking technique is likely the secret behind his fresh and fluffy cakes. Cake goes stale quicker than other desserts because of its light, spongy texture, so the pastry chef and his team at Charm City begin each commission by sketching a design and touching up every last fondant flower and frosting flourish before they even consider preheating the oven.

"Think back to how many weddings you attended where the wedding cake was beautiful, but tasted like crap," Goldman tells Food Network. "There are a few reasons for this, but the main problem is that whoever made the cake didn't make flavor and freshness a priority. Maybe that cake was sitting in a freezer for a month, or worse, sitting in the fridge for a week." With his meticulous method and high standards of confectionery craftsmanship, Goldman truly proves to be the Ace of Cakes.