A pixelated portrait of The Queen made out of 3,120 cakes, one for each week of her reign, will be made by bakers Konditor & Cook as part of the Jubilee weekend celebrations.
The giant portrait, a framed image which will be just over 94 square feet, will be displayed on a giant easel in Battersea Park on June 3rd at the Diamond Jubilee Festival.
Work has already started on the project with a trial run of 500 cakes. It is the brainchild of German born Gerhard Jenne, who originally trained in Munich as a pastry chef (konditor) and in London as a cook. He wanted to create a digital portrait of The Queen for the digital age.
Gerhard and his team are using cross stitch software to break the image up into a map made up of colours and symbols. Each cake will be iced and represents one pixel.
More than 1,000 eggs (83 dozen), 50 kg of butter (200 packets), 150kg of sugar (150 bags)and 36 kg of marzipan (144 packets) will be used to make the cube shaped 4.5cm x 4.5cm cakes. Gerhard is using his lemon Victoria sponge recipe (Magic Cake) which features unwaxed organic lemons and organic eggs. The cakes are covered in apricot jam and marzipan before being iced and have a shelf life of 18 days. A fruit cake recipe will be used for the frame which will be adorned in diamond shaped biscuits.
Gerhard hopes to bake and ice the 3,120 cakes over three to four days with at least four members of his team working on the project.
Visitors to the festival will also have the opportunity to decorate the 11 metres of fruit cake which will make up the frame for the portrait. The final image will be assembled on the day and once completed it will be cut and the border shared amongst festival goers with the option to buy a cake with a donation to charity.
Gerhard said: I’ve never made a portrait out of cakes before so it’s a big challenge to do something on this scale. Her Majesty is now a Queen in the digital age and I think the portrait should reflect that. I’ve made cakes for rock royalty before now including Mick Jagger and Tina Turner but this is a first. I hope we can rise to the challenge."
Clare Patey, co-curator of the Diamond Jubilee Festival, Battersea Park, commissioned Konditor and Cook. She said: "Everyone loves cake and this is the perfect way to celebrate The Queen’s reign. It will be a visual feast and what’s more a delicious one!"
The cake will consist of 18 panels of cakes together forming an area, including the frame, measuring 3.2 metres by 2.7 metres.