Edible anatomy. One of Annabel's cakes based on 18th century anatomical wax models. Photo / conjurerskitchen.com
Edible anatomy. One of Annabel's cakes based on 18th century anatomical wax models. Photo / conjurerskitchen.com
These cakes are "for people with a sweet tooth but a strong stomach," explains British baker nicknamed Annabel Lecter.
Annabel de Vetten is the go-to cake maker if you want something truly memorable. A tower of birds' skulls, for example, or a startlingly lifelike hairy hog's head.
Annabel runs the Conjurer's Kitchen in the UK and specialises in the kind of cakes you won't find in your local bakery.
The ghoulishly creative baker, 42, has become famous for her terrifyingly realistic cakes - a motley collection of dead baby heads, skinned birds, rodent skulls, blood-soaked intestines and human brains.
Annabel only began baking three years ago, but now spends around 30 hours making each one out of sponge cake, icing, marshmallows and chocolate, and sells each for upwards of £400, that's over NZ$780.
"When people look at my cakes, they recoil in disgust, but thankfully when they taste them, they love them," she said.
"But it's funny watching their expressions as they bite into a bit of intestine and realise it tastes like chocolate cake."
"With stuff like the life-size baby's heads, which are made from white chocolate and therefore look kind of dead, it obviously isn't to everyone's taste - but they're certainly different and that's not always a bad thing.
Annabel began cracking eggs and creaming butter just three years ago as she baked her own wedding cake when she tied the knot to magician Thom, 48.
After the cake, featuring a little magician on top instead of a bride and groom, went down a storm with guests, she quit her job as a sculptor to set up her own bakery, Conjurer's Kitchen.
"I started off just making cakes that were magician-themed, but I started getting more gruesome requests - and things just escalated into making dead baby heads and human hearts.
"My cakes resemble human organs, mummified heads and life-sized skulls - they're for people with a sweet tooth but a strong stomach," she said.
Dead baby heads made from white chocolate. Photo / conjurerskitchen.com
Pig head cakes. Photo / conjurerskitchen.com
"I just sort of fell into this business. I didn't make my wedding cake with the mind to get into baking, we only had a small budget for our ceremony and I thought it would be a bit of fun and a penny-saver.
"But the cake came out really well and I had a lot of fun doing it. It just went from there and now I love my job.
"My family are so supportive of my gruesome cakes business - they would probably find it weirder if I made pretty and girly cakes because that just isn't me."
Annabel has since created a serial killer cake and a bondage-themed wedding cake.
Her website, Conjurerskitchen.com, lists her past projects, gives you tips and ideas for your cakes and welcomes any suggestion - no job is too big or small for Annabel.
On the website's blog, Annabel writes about her most unusual requests and experiences.
Image 1 of 17: Edible anatomy. One of Annabel's cakes based on 18th century anatomical wax models. Photo / conjurerskitchen.com
"I based one cake on the bejewelled skeletons of saints displayed in churches throughout Europe.
"Of course my jewels were entirely edible, as well as the rest.
