Like many other current-day business people, a typical work-day for Marion and Christos Vazos-Henkel involves working in front of a computer in their Gournes workshop.

However, there is one big difference.

When they complete a design and press the print key, their work is displayed in four-colour sugar!

 Marion and Christos are the brains behind the highly inventive Sugar Design Company, which, among other things, produces detailed photographs in edible sugar on cakes for various celebrations.

Photo cake in four-colour sugar

Although Christos is a native Athenian, he lived and worked in Germany for the past 25 years. That’s where he met Marion, his wife of 23 years, and they have two children, Alex, 12, and Nikos, 10.

“When we moved to Crete, we decided to come up with the sugar design concept,” Christos said. “It’s very popular throughout Germany, and we thought the time was right to introduce the concept here. So we imported the equipment and set up shop in Gournes.”

That was six months ago . . . and since then Sugar Design has produced hundreds of cakes for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, christenings and other special events – all with brilliant, four-colour photographs printed in sugar.

“The printer works like any normal HP or Lexmark hooked up to a computer,” Christos explained. “Except this special unit, larger than the average printer, has the four colour cartridges loaded with special sugar instead of ink.”

Although Sugar Design works through local bakeries and sweet shops, many of its orders come from private individuals.

“People bake their own cakes, give us the photograph they want to use, tell us the dimensions of the cake, and we supply the topping exactly like the photograph,” Christos said. “It’s as easy as that.”

Well, not exactly that easy. First, Marion, an experienced graphic artist, puts the highlights and finishing touches on the photograph with design software. When she gets it just right, it is printed out on 100 percent edible sheets, then carefully applied to the cake.

The finished product, when presented to the assembled revellers, always draws the appropriate oohs and aahs.

“We’ve put all kinds of pictures on cakes,” Christos explained. “One time a young woman wanted a bare-breasted photo of herself for her fiancé on their engagement party cake. But that’s as far as we’d go – we will never do anything X-rated.”

In addition to the photo cakes, Sugar Design makes its own photo lollipops and rents chocolate fountains for children’s parties, and creates work in all-chocolate, including cards and invitations.

“As far we know, we are the only ones in Crete that has the technology to produce chocolate designs in colour,” Christos said proudly. “It’s a special secret method,” he added with a conspiratorial wink.

The photo-lollipop cake