HER novels may have been of a decidedly sugary bent, but now Dame Barbara Cartland has taken on an even more saccharine state.

For a bust of the late Essendon resident has been rendered in marzipan.

The almond-flavoured artwork is part of a collection by Austrian sculptor Helga Petrau-Heinzel.

The Vienna-based artist claims, rather unflatteringly of Dame Barbara, that her thought-provoking ensemble shows how things can look unattractive on the outside, but be sweet on the inside.

She said: “I saw a picture of Dame Barbara in an exhibition, a bizarre pink lady, and I just couldn’t stop myself.

“I had to sculpt her and because she looked so artificially sugary, I used marzipan.

“It seemed to prove that sweet material cannot only create cute things.

“On the contrary - the bitter sweet side tempted me,” said Helga.”

The exhibition also features some more repulsive items, including animal entrails and rotting pigs’ heads, all lovingly manipulated in marzipan.

Dame Barbara died aged 98 in 2000 and she managed to pen a whopping 273 books in her lifetime.