These are some last research leftovers from the 17 December 2001 entry about Earlene Moore’s cakes.

Mike’s Amazing Cakes is just that. I won’t link to individual cakes because there’s something glitchy about the way some of them display, but the site has good clear thumbnail pages. They’re divided into three categories. The special event cakes for corporate occasions are impressive, though almost too slick. The personal occasion cakes are just as beautifully finished, but weirder. I sympathize with the CEO who couldn’t eat his own portrait bust. The wedding cakes are the most humorous of the lot. My favorite is either the one with the penguins, or the one where a firetruck has pulled up next to the traditional tiered cake to rescue the bride from her perch on the top layer.

Sheila Miller makes detailed scale models of real buildings in gingerbread, which she refers to as gingerbread replicas. Which makes sense; they’re a long way from the traditional gingerbread house. Best line: “My husband, Gordon, used an electric router to miter the corners of the walls and chimneys…”

Roland A. Winbeckler’s forte is life-size full-round realistic portrait sculptures. Here are his Cher, Colonel Sanders, Princess Diana, Elvis, George Washington, and Christopher Columbus cakes. (The Colonel not unreasonably asked whether his cake was chicken-flavored, but it was just vanilla.) Over here are his pastry effigies of Wayne Gretzky, little people Michu & Julianna, Marilyn Monroe, a Tiger, and a Viking. Some smaller stuff: busts of Abraham Lincoln and King Tutankhamun, a Dungeness crab, a roast turkey, and some Lambeth cakes. And here’s how he does it, making in this case an effigy of someone named Bernie.