as part of the "visit Pittsburgh irregularly, and discover what is good about the place" insight:

Pittsburgh is a bakery place. A place with the corner store having a bakery near by from the Patty Cake Bakery in Bloomfield, to Prantl's on Walnut Street in Shadyside to the magnificent Waldorf Bakery in Squirrel Hill. There is always a place nearby with high transfat sugar cookies, decorated within an inch of their lives, miles of cookies extruded out of a gun, sprinkled and dolloped and decorated with sparkling sugar or little blurps of colored goo, endless trays of sticky buns, tea cookies, small cakes, cupcakes, petit fours or iced swirly cakes that look like a fixed version of a soft serve cone. There are pepperoni loaves, cheese loaves and bread dyed in every shade of the rainbow for tea sandwiches. Prantls is known for their alligator shaped bread along with snakes and turtles. Prantls is known for their absolutely scrumptious burnt almond torte...a stellar Pittsburgh culinary moment equal to a Primanti capicola, egg and cheese sandwich with coleslaw and fries under the top piece of greasy bread. A true show stopper (and a heart stopper, too!).

So, visiting Pittsburgh for the wedding of the decade (they served burnt almond torte and klondikes!!) we discovered the fabulous Oakmont Bakery.No end to cookies, cupcakes, minicakes, and tons of wedding cake examples with my favorite having the wedding vows transcribed on the verticals of each level in brown and accented with leaves. They had endless cakes and cakes decorated to be other things like bright orange pumpkins, steelers logos. You get the jist. More crisco than you would know what to do with. Amazing. I will take pictures over thanksgiving. It is way too wonderful.