Something about a celebratory cake made for one of Donald Trump’s inaugural balls this past Friday looked awfully familiar to Duff Goldman.
The Charm City Cakes owner, a star on the Food Network’s now-retired show “Ace of Cakes” and a judge on the channel’s ongoing “Kids Baking Championship,” made his observation on Twitter Friday evening. The side-by-side photo he tweeted caused a firestorm on social media and was picked up by national outlets.
The cake on the left is the one I made for President Obama’s inauguration 4 years ago. The one on the right is Trumps. I didn’t make it. ? pic.twitter.com/qJXpCfPhii
— Duff Goldman (@duffgoldman) January 21, 2017
Four years ago, President Obama’s team commissioned Goldman to craft a cake for his Commander in Chief’s Ball following his second inauguration. Goldman produced a decadent nine-tier, patriotically colored dessert complete with decorative stars shooting out of the top. On Friday, a photo appeared of newly sworn-in President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence cutting through an identical creation at their Salute to Our Armed Services Ball.
According to The Washington Post, the D.C.-based bakery that designed the cake was told to replicate it in its exact form. Tiffany MacIsaac, owner of Buttercream Bakeshop, told The Post she asked Trump’s staff to consider Obama’s old cake as “inspiration” for their order. Their response, according to her: “Nope, they want this exact cake. It’s perfect.”
Goldman and MacIsaac soon talked it out. Goldman later tweeted a message of appreciation for her bakery’s work.
Remembering a fantastic cake I made is awesome and the chef that re-created it for @POTUS Trump did a fantastic job. Group hug, y’all. ??
— Duff Goldman (@duffgoldman) January 21, 2017
Thanks for the chat @Duff_Goldman. You are a class act!
— Buttercream Bakeshop (@BttrcrmBakeshop) January 22, 2017
Anytime, @BttrcrmBakeshop! You guys made a beautiful cake! Come by @Charm_CityCakes if you’re ever in Baltimore! ❤??? https://t.co/ou8hR1I3og
— Duff Goldman (@duffgoldman) January 22, 2017
Buttercream Bakeshop also credited Goldman as the inspiration for its design in an Instagram post the next day. The bakery said in the same post that it was donating all proceeds to the Human Rights Campaign instead of keeping them, “Because basic human rights are something every man, woman and child~ straight, gay or the rainbow in between~ deserve!”
This isn’t the presidential family’s first plagiarism-related controversy. Melania Trump, now our first lady, famously copied Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention speech in her own address at the Republican National Convention this past July. And as of Friday, the president himself has been accused of lifting material from Bane, the resilient supervillain from “The Dark Night Rises,” though that was more likely just an awkward coincidence.
