It's that time of year when pastry chefs across the country try their hand at making epic gingerbread works of art. In Alberta, there is one establishment that stands above the rest when it comes to creativity and attention to detail in this seasonal offering. Other gingerbread castles and buildings from the Harry Potter series have been built over the years, but none of them comes close to the one that was recently unveiled by the folks behind Duchess Bake Shop and Café Linnea in Edmonton.

Several months of backbreaking days, limb-numbing hours and obvious wizardry went into planning, measuring, forming, baking, cutting, pasting, painting, frosting and decorating the 1:100 scale replica of Hogwarts Castle now taking up 50 square feet of space inside the bake shop.

Never mind the perfectly formed turrets, bridges and impressive out-buildings. Look inside the glass-like walls of the miniature greenhouses that sit on the west lawn and you’ll find pea-sized marzipan plants decorated with even tinier red and green baubles. Lacy strands of snowy icing trim windows and doorways galore. Candy canes bolster corners and countless silver sugar pearls and jewel-coloured candies dot every rampart, tower and parapet.

The result is an edible architectural wonder, of which J. K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, would surely be impressed.

Want to win the castle? Your donation of a pair of new socks goes towards the Bissell Centre and serves as a ticket to win the right to demolish the castle. That’s right, you could be the mastermind behind Hogwarts’ greatest battle scene ever.

Demolishing this extravagant structure seems like a shame but it's the only way to remove it from the property. The upside is, whoever wins will have enough gingerbread to see them through until next Christmas.