Sure, we all love cake, but why bother with a boring flat sheet of icing when you can gorge on an elaborate structure crafted by confectioner Raven Patrick De'sean Dennis III a/k/a Cake Man Raven? In April 2000, CMR opened his namesake Fort Greene shop, which features his signature red velvet cake (a Southern delicacy), but he makes his rep from his unusual cakes: a seven-foot replica of the Brooklyn Bridge for its 120th anniversary; a Lowe Library–shaped cake for Columbia U; and a 20-foot-tall wedding cake stuffed with $50,000 for contestants of the show Bridezilla to jump into and retrieve. He has also crafted special cakes for Dizzy Gillespie (in the shape of a trumpet), Muhammad Ali (with a Golden Gloves theme), Isaac Hayes (a life-size bust with shades), Timbaland (with a sandcastle theme for his wedding), Jesse Jackson (in the shape of a church steeple), Jay-Z (with sports and liquor themes for his club), and, his favorite, a purple-shoe cake for Patti LaBelle, which she loved so much that she wouldn't cut it (he had to make a second one for her to eat).