Would you eat a Gordon Brown cupcake?

Zilly Rosen, a pastry artist in Buffalo, took her treats to Washington this weekend, constructing side-by-side portraits of Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln using more than 5,600 cupcakes.

But the edible exhibit, on display Saturday at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in honor of Lincoln’s 200th birthday, had a short shelf life.

Just before 5 p.m., after a five-hour display period, the cupcakes started flying off the ground as salivating spectators devoured the mural from the outside in. Within minutes nearly all of Lincoln’s face had disappeared. But an hour later — thanks to either full stomachs or a respect for the sitting president — the majority of Mr. Obama’s face was left intact.

The mural had something for all tastes: Lincoln, on the right, was recreated in vanilla cupcakes with chocolate butter-cream frosting. Mr. Obama’s likeness, on the left, was made out of chocolate cupcakes with vanilla butter-cream frosting. The stripes on the American flag backdrop were red velvet.

Ms. Rosen and a few helpers assembled the mural in a matter of hours Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. It was on public display on Valentine’s Day from noon until 5 p.m., when visitors were invited to help de-install the artwork. The whole affair was broadcast live on the museum’s Web site. The video and a time-lapse feature of the portrait’s journey from construction to crumbs will be available on the museum’s blog, Eye Level, next week.

Ms. Rosen, the proprietor of Zillycakes, a custom cake shop in Buffalo, first fused gastronomy and politics on Election Day, creating a 1,240-cupcake portrait of Mr. Obama, which she served to volunteers at his campaign’s Buffalo headquarters Nov. 5, according to her Web site.
“It started as a crazy love poem in food dedicated to an amazing candidate,” Rosen wrote. She calls her work “equal parts installation, performance, homage, and dessert.”

Thanks to the Caucus blog/New York Times for the pics and story!

Can't imagine what the UK version would be - Gordon Brown and Maggie Thatcher?? Both have "led" the country into the crap...and I can only imagine what flavour the cupcakes would be!!