A BASINGSTOKE based cake maker and film fan was pleased to receive some acknowledgement from a Hollywood director.

Laura Miller, 29, of Sugar Spice Cakes, in Chineham, made a chocolate sculpture of the Marvel Comics character Baby Groot, from the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy sequel, who then got her work noticed by the film’s director, James Gunn.

She was assisted by co-owner and friend Mike Leary, who helped film the video of the making of and took the pictures.

Made of approximately three kilograms of chocolate, the sculpture took seven hours to make with scalpels and special tools, catching the attention of Mr Gunn on social media, where he shared it on his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, where it was seen by his more than 280,000 followers.

Laura said: “It was great, we really geeked out when we saw that he had seen it.

“Even though we tagged him in it, we didn’t really expect anything to come from it.

“I’m a big fan of Guardians of the Galaxy, and this was a bit of fun that I purely did on the side.”

This isn’t Laura’s first chocolate sculpture, having already made one of DC’s Joker and Harley Quinn.

There is a detailed video showing how Laura constructed the impressive sculpture, along with a timelapse video compressing the seven-hour process into just two minutes.

The chocolate Baby Groot will soon be joined by Laura’s next project of making a chocolate version of his cinematic companion of Rocket Raccoon, with the pair being put on display at the Cake International show in London later this month on April 22-23.

You can view the video of Laura making the Groot sculture here: https://youtu.be/sGSUV--tND4