Ace Of Cakes - Star Wars Droid

Ace Of Cakes makes me wish I had cable. From what I've seen from parusing the channels at my parent's house, I could easily get hooked on this show.

Duff Goldman, the star pastry chef who loves Star Wars, was recently asked by Lucasfilms to be the voice of the baker droid in one of the new episodes of The Clone Wars. He sat down with Bonnie Burton of The Star Wars blog for this great interview:

Food Network's Ace of Cakes rock star pastry chef Duff Goldman has made everything from a Han Solo in carbonite cake for a Star Wars fan's birthday to a beeping R2-D2 cake for George Lucas, so it was only a matter of time before he was made into a baker droid in The Clone Wars episode "Evil Plans."
StarWars.com chats with Goldman about his new role as a baker droid, his critique of the animated cake, whether R2-D2 or C-3PO would make a better pastry chef and why he would love to bake a cake for Jabba the Hutt.

As a long-time Star Wars fan, how did it feel lending your voice to The Clone Wars? What was it like being a baker in droid form?
I'm so excited! We were at Lucasfilm and they were filming The Clone Wars and there was a baker droid in it! It was like, "Of course, you should be doing the voice for the baker droid!" I love doing voice over work anyway. It was incredible! I've been a Star Wars fan for as long as I can remember. And even just to have one little part in the Star Wars universe is just amazing.


What other voice acting have you done before this?
I played a dumb jock bully version of myself on King of the Hill. We did a cake for the big series finale they were having and they wanted us to do voices and I got to play basically myself in high school. And I do a lot of voice over work for our show and a couple of other food shows.

When you were told you'd be a baker droid, how did you decide to do the voice?
I saw a rough sketch of what the droid looked like, but I didn't want to have that influence me too much. I actually tried to do a robot voice, and then they reminded me that they have a digital processor to do that sort of thing.

Now that you've seen the animated cake, does it meet your standards?

I think that if I was a baker droid in a galaxy far, far away, a long time ago, that would be a cake I'd be very proud of.

What would you add or do differently?

I would borrow the part of R2-D2 that plays holograms and I would stick that on top of the cake and do a hologram of one of Jabba's dancing girls.

I love that you would make the equivalent of a dancing girl popping out a cake for a politician!
Of course!

Who would you rather have helping you in the kitchen -- R2-D2 or C-3PO?

If I was baking a cake, I would have C-3PO in the kitchen because he's very precise and you need that when following a recipe. I would put duct tape over his mouth though. It's really hard to bake with someone yammering at you. If he was telling me the odds of the cake baking correctly, I'd turn his voice box off.

Now if I was cooking a meal, I would want R2-D2 in the kitchen because when you're cooking, you're really cooking from the hip. It seems like Artoo made decisions as things happened. Artoo is more of a chef and Threepio is more of a pastry chef.

If you lived in the Star Wars galaxy, which character would you be honored to create a cake for?
I would do a gigantic victory cake for all the Wookiees and roll it out to them and watch them totally rip the cake to shreds.

You just want to see Wookiees covered in icing, don't you? Are you assuming Wookiees don't have proper table manners?

They're Wookiees, come on! Of course they don't have table manners! You saw Chewbacca in the cantina and that was it.

 

Is there anyone you'd be nervous making a cake for from the Star Wars universe?

I think a good test of my skills would be making a cake of Han Solo frozen in carbonite for Jabba the Hutt. We've made that cake in real life, and did it really well. But I would want to make it for Jabba but then stand on the grate on top of the Rancor pit and that would be the ultimate test. If he didn't drop me into the pit, I would know that Jabba would be a repeat customer. If you had to face the Rancor monster or angry Wookiees if your cake wasn't good enough, you'd do a really good job!

What kind of cake would Jabba get from you?
Probably a sweet cake with bits of frog in it! (laughs)