Patricia Moroz is an artist. She makes sculptures that delight people. Photos are taken of them, and people gush over them. Then they eat them.

Moroz is in the business of creating edible art.

Her one-of-a-kind cakes are so exquisite, some people have a hard time eating them.

But Starlight Custom Cakes taste as good as they look.

Moroz moved to Sawyer's Island from Rockport in July with her husband, Mike.

She set up her already established cake business in a small building outside the main house.

“We started remodeling the building right away because I had to start working,” Moroz said.

Moroz is passionate about creating and personalizing her wedding and special occasion sculpted cakes. But don't go to her looking for any other baked goods.

“I'm not a bakery,” she said.

Before she got serious about being a specialty cake maker, Moroz was making gingerbread houses for the Christmas by the Sea weekend, an annual event that takes place in Camden, Lincolnville and Rockport.

For the last nine years she has made 100 to 150 gingerbread houses for the event. People came from all over for them.

“They would be lined up outside by 7 a.m.,” Moroz said. “We opened the doors at 8 a.m., and we were always sold out of gingerbread houses by 8:30.”

Because of the move, Moroz told them she couldn't do the fair this year. But she felt bad about leaving them, so she promised to do 40 or 50 small gingerbread houses.

On Nov. 26, her workshop was filled with small ones in all phases of completion.

Moroz calls them Sweet Dream Houses.

“These are for kids, and they keep them by their bedsides so they're the last thing they look at every night, and they'll have sweet dreams,” Moroz said.

When she's not making gingerbread houses, Moroz is busy with her specialties: wedding and sculpted cakes.

Having studied under some of the best master sugar artists and pastry chefs in the country, Moroz's sculpted cakes, some up to four and five feet high, have been made in the form of figures, animals and automobiles. Photos of her creations line the walls of her workshop. There's a frog, a chef, a matador, a three-foot tall pumpkin man, a frog, a 1918 Model T firetruck, Peter Rabbit, dogs. You name it, Moroz has probably made it.

Armature wire and PVC pipes are used to form some of the more intricate figures, and edible paint is used for much of the detail. Many of the forms and shapes that make up the figures are sculpted from Rice Krispies Treats, then covered in a fine coating of “modeling chocolate” or fondant — all edible of course.

Moroz made a cake for the Rockport Fire Department recently.

“It was a replica of one of their fire engines,” she said. “They ate everything. Rice Krispies, fondant, chocolate.”

The wedding cakes Moroz creates are covered in rolled fondant that resembles porcelain. They range from the elegant to the playful, whimsical and contemporary. There are lovely, white flower-covered wedding cakes for the bride, and fun, playful sculpted ones for the groom.

When she's not building edible sculptures or wedding cakes, Moroz does tutorials, book reviews and product testing for American Cake Decorating Magazine, a bi-monthly national publication, to which she contributes four or five times a year. She also gives classes in cake making.

Moroz said she often gets calls from people wanting to intern with her.

“When I teach classes most of them are culinary school graduates,” she said.

A woman from Canada came last winter and stayed for over six days.

“We worked from eight in the morning till around eight at night. They are long, intensive classes.”

One of the photos in the workshop was of a cake with a bottle of wine next to it. The “bottle,” also made by Moroz, was made of sugar.

“When you put one on the table next to a real wine bottle you can't tell the difference,” she said. “They even break like glass.”

Wanting to see what happened when one of her bottles did break, Moroz asked her husband to be a guinea pig. He put on a baseball cap for protection, and she broke it over his head.

“He screamed,” she said. “There was a huge welt on his head. Luckily he's a good sport.” She has made the bottles thinner since.

Mike Moroz also makes scale models for her when needed.

All Starlight Custom Cakes are made with fresh, organic ingredients. Moroz suggests that orders are placed early, as available dates fill up quickly. The cakes, like most finely-crafted art, don't come cheap. Some of the sculpted ones go for $250 to $300. Wedding cakes are $6 per slice.

Moroz may be the only person who doesn't call herself an artist.

“I don't think I'm an artist. It's in the eye of the beholder.”

To reach Patricia Moroz and Starlight Custom Cakes, call 207-633-0481 or go to www.starlightcustomcakes.com or email svendle4@midcoast.com.