World’s most expensive gingerbread house is worth £6.3 million
A British food artist has created the world’s most expensive gingerbread house worth £6.3 million and decorated with diamonds.
Debbie Wingham, 41, made the Dolce & Gabbana-inspired gingerbread creation from 15kg of flour and 17kg of sugar.
The designer and food artist spent two weeks crafting the confectionery which features rice paper mannequins and clothes, edible wallpaper and four diamonds inside.
The house was designed for a couple who used the diamonds, which will feature in their engagement ring, as their proposal.
Standing at just under one metre tall and 75cm wide, the gingerbread cottage is designed to look like the D&G store in Puerto Banus, Spain. The designer is the couple’s favourite brand.
Ms Wingham used ginger cookies for the structure of the house and icing sugar, chocolate, sprinkles and fondant for the decorations.
The sweet confection displays a loose pink diamond, worth £3.1 million, and three individual pink diamonds worth £1 million each, which were placed between the Christmas lights on the exterior of the gingerbread store above the D&G sign.
Ms Wingham creates life-like cakes and has made them for celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and American drag queen and television personality RuPaul.
The cake artist, from Doncaster, South Yorkshire, said: “I have made sugar art pieces for many clients from royals to celebrities and for occasions from bar mitzvahs to weddings and big corporate brand launches, but this was my first proposal confection.
“I’m delighted that my client is now going into the new year with a fiancé.”
She added: “It is always rewarding when you deliver a creation, but this one had high stakes as it was a proposal confection. I don’t think I have ever been so nervous.
“Normally I worry about the transit of the sugar creations but this time I was thinking I hope she says yes.
“A confection with massive responsibility, I was delighted when they notified me that she said yes.”
The couple are now designing a ring and matching earrings together, using the diamonds, and plan to have an engagement party on New Year’s Eve to reveal the ring.
