In case the title of this article wasn’t clear enough, the turkey in the picture below ins’t actually raw meat, skin and bones, but an edible cake made of sponge, butter cream and marzipan. Even knowing that you’re looking at an expertly made optical illusion, it’s still pretty hard to believe that it’s not really a turkey ready to go into the oven. Everything from the pink, plucked skin, to the properly-proportioned wings and drumsticks was perfectly executed by English cake artist Sarah Hardy. Using her experience as a wax sculpture artist, Hardy is able to mold layers of sponge cake, chocolate and sugar or marzipan icing into all kinds of realistic designs, from human organs to birds and frogs. Sarah has been making her eerily-realistic raw turkey cake for at least four years now, and she even has a tutorial on how to make one yourself on her official website, but her unique creation only went viral this month, after being featured in a now viral video by Food Insider. In the video, Sarah Hardy explains that she paid her way through art school by making wax figured for museums, but even though she enjoyed her work immensely, she didn’t want to continue working with potentially dangerous chemicals after she became pregnant. Luckily once she started making cakes for her kids, she realized she could use the skills she developed as a wax sculptor to shape her cake into various designs. She hasn’t looked back since.

View this post on Instagram

Raw Turkey Cake! We had to remake it for Insider Magazine this week but also filmed a tutorial so that we can share the love of grossing out friends and family. Hope to edit it and get it up on Sarahhardymakes.com in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas. #turkeycake #rawturkeycake #turkorial #cake #cakeillusions #insidermagazine #foodart #foodillusions #artistatwork #inthestudio #rawturkey #raw_turkey #notwhatitseems #marzipan #cakesculpting #cakeart #thanksgivingcake #christmascake

A post shared by The Edible Museum (@theediblemuseum) on Aug 15, 2019 at 12:52am PDT

Sarah’s amazing turkey cakes has a sponge and butter cream base, with smaller pieces “glued” on with cream to highlight the wings and drumsticks. Once the general shape is completed, the artist attaches dozens of marzipan bits to create the plucked skin effect once the thin layer of marzipan icing is added. Finally, the expert cake artist uses fine tools to shape the marzipan “skin” perfectly, using food dye to add more fine details.