Bad boy of baking finally has cookbook

“I always wanted to do a book,” Goldman said from a hotel room in New York, where he is promoting the book on tour, “but publishers were always looking for a cookbook, and that’s just not what I wanted to do. I wanted to do a book on who we all are at Charm City Cakes – the spirit of what goes on behind the scenes.”

The book is all that and more – an in-depth look at the bakery’s many decorators and all the people who make "Ace of Cakes" work, from producers to directors. There are no fuzzy, touched-up photos of froufrou, pastel-colored cakes a la Martha et al. Tips include things such as decorator Adam Goldstein’s “do not leave cake unattended around vultures, jackals or underpaid art students.” Words of wisdom come from quotes such as the one on the back of the book jacket: “We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing,” attributed to “Ben” Franklin.

Goldman’s creativity, craziness and all-out chutzpah seem to be what’s landed him in the middle of a very prominent career, but his future wasn’t always as bright. When he was young, he was bored at school and got into lots of trouble – some of it with minor felony charges attached. As a teenager, he was a graffiti artist at night, art student by day (and sometimes the other way around).

“When the cops would catch me,” a laughing Goldman said, “I would empty my paint cans on myself on a dare to avoid going to jail. That’s how I got the graffiti tag ‘Mes,' ‘cause I was messy.”

After finishing college at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Goldman decided he might better express himself through food and attended the Culinary Institute of America Greystone. After working as a stagiere or holding jobs with the likes of Baltimore chef Cindy Wolf and famed then-French Laundry pastry chef Stephen Durfee, he opened Charm City Cakes in Baltimore in 2000.

And yet, his realm ever widens – Goldman is really just a frustrated musician like the rest of us. His band, soihadto, just signed with Grape Juice Records in Chicago.

So "Ace of Cakes" is just a day job until his bass-playing skills catch on?

“Sort of,” Goldman said, laughing. “Just about everybody at Charm City Cakes is a musician.”

And sure, the world does want to know how to make that five-tiered, harlequin-draped cake look like it's exploding. But what we really want to know is how those graffiti guys get their tags on the underpasses of the interstate, right? How do those sneakers get tied over head?

“I’ll tell you,” Goldman said. “We do it the old-fashioned way – we hang each other over the highway by our heels.”