The world's first edible garden of cake

Even the creepy crawlies are edible in the Willy Wonka-esque wonderland

The scent of roses, pansies and peonies has never been sweeter as the world’s first edible garden opened its gates in Central London yesterday.

The quintessentially English country garden, which took over 450 hours to bake, build and install, is made from 15 different types of cake.

For one day only, visitors were encouraged to dig in to the bourbon biscuit borders and nibble on one of the 250 cake flowers growing in the plot in Russell Square, which was surrounded by a wall made from 1,300 slices of fruit loaf grouted with Nutella.

And to make sure that no one went home hungry, 30 bags of marshmallows, eight kilos of sweets and chocolate pebbles and more than 1,000 biscuits finished off the Willy Wonka-esque wonderland where even the creepy crawlies were edible.

The garden was crafted by award-winning cake designer Rosalind Miller who has produced bespoke creations for The Ritz, The Goring and Blenheim Palace as well as a number of high profile clients.

It was created to launch the paperback version of author Carole Matthews’ new novel The Cake Shop in the Garden.

The garden brought the book’s title to life using four kilos of icing alongside borders of chocolate crumb soil, Battenberg stepping stones, a bird bath lined with Swiss-roll and a lawn dotted with sugar daisies – not forgetting 300 leaves of edible ivy.

Author Carole Matthews said: “The garden is the place where love, life and family collide for my main character, Faye Merryweather so it was really exciting to bring it to life using cake as it features so prominently throughout the storyline. It was certainly one of a kind – and where better for visitors to grab a slice of the action?”