Chef scoops award with vegetable fat angel sculpture

Chef Naoko Sugekawa has spent 180 hours carving an intricate 2ft-high sculpture of an angel out of vegetable fat, which includes 500 individual feathers.

The pastry chef, who works at Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons in Oxfordshire, scooped a special fat-carving prize at a London trade show.

Miss Sugekawa admitted that using vegetable fat was not as difficult as using butter, but she had to work in the best conditions to create the angel.