Matteo Stucchi's Dessert Dioramas: Tiny Workers in a Pastry World

The best-known scene in the series: a construction crew finishing a tiramisu. A toy crane lowers a sieve of cocoa powder while workers on ladders spread it across the mascarpone, turning the dusting step of the recipe into a building job.

A dark chocolate cake topped with chopped hazelnuts becomes a stone yard. Workers with hammers crack whole nuts on the ground while another climbs a ladder to the top layer, as if the topping had been quarried by hand.

Italian "pesche dolci" (peach-shaped sandwich biscuits soaked in liqueur and rolled in sugar) hang from a twig tree planted in a chocolate block. One worker picks fruit from a ladder while another wheels a fallen peach away on a hand truck.

Sandwich biscuits with a chocolate filling hang from a wooden frame like punch bags or swings. A tiny figure on a chocolate square seems to be testing them, which shows how Stucchi uses simple props like skewers and string.

Fruit tartlets filled with custard and piled with blackberries, raspberries and blueberries. The workers here are delivery men: one pushes a single blueberry on a trolley, which suddenly looks the size of a boulder.

Two sugar-dusted shortbread rings with jam centres become a pair of ponds joined by a wooden footbridge. Anglers sit at the edge of the jam, a classic example of reading an existing shape as a landscape.

A jam biscuit in a toy frying pan reads instantly as a fried egg, with broken chocolate eggshells beside it. A tiny cook works with a spatula, so the joke is about breakfast as much as baking.

Blocks of dark, white and milk chocolate stand in for cliffs. Miners with a cart haul out pieces, a reminder that chocolate is literally poured and cut into slabs before it reaches the pastry kitchen.

A molten chocolate lava cake spills its centre onto the table, and a rubber raft full of tiny paddlers rides the flow. My Modern Met and frankie both singled out this river-rafting scene in their coverage.

Choux pastry swans, a classic of Italian and French patisserie, float on a lake made of blue sugar paste. A small figure watches from the shore, and a sprig of mint becomes a bush.

The wedding scene: a strawberry dipped in white chocolate as the bride and one decorated as a groom in a tuxedo, with a priest, a red carpet and elderly guests. My Modern Met described it as a pocket-sized priest marrying two chocolate-covered strawberries.

Workers roll out sheets of puff pastry like hay bales or carpets, while finished palmiers (the heart-shaped puff pastry biscuits) wait at the end of the line. It is a neat way to show how the layered pastry is actually made.

Millefoglie-style slices filled with yellow custard become a construction site. A crane lifts the top layer of puff pastry into place while workers in orange vests stand among traffic cones.

Gingerbread figures wrapped in white icing look like mummies, a Halloween idea. The tiny people standing next to them make the biscuits look like giants in bandages.

A chocolate muffin in a paper case becomes a mountain. Climbers on ropes scale the sugar-dusted top, and a guide below directs them.

Cream puffs glazed with chocolate are "filled" from a tanker truck through a long hose. The joke works because choux buns really are filled through a small hole after baking.

A jar labelled "Pesche sciroppate" (peaches in syrup) holds more peach biscuits. Outside, a seesaw made from sticks balances a row of figures against one peach, a playful comment on the weight of a dessert.

A meringue-topped tartlet sits beside a stack of marshmallows. A worker carries a toasted marshmallow on a skewer, which is bigger than he is.

Three strawberries dipped in dark and white chocolate wear "tuxedos". Painters on ladders appear to be adding the white chocolate shirt fronts and buttons by hand.

A Ferris wheel built from cake pops on wooden sticks around a square of chocolate. Each cake pop carries a passenger, and the colourful sprinkles make the wheel look like a fairground at night.

A weightlifter holds up a barbell made of two sandwich biscuits on a stick while standing on a chocolate whoopie cookie. It is one of the simplest set-ups in the series and one of the most effective.

Almond biscotti (cantucci), with their cross-section of nuts, become a rock face. Climbers find holds in the almonds, much as real climbers use pockets in limestone.

Two palmiers and a biscuit form a butterfly, and a small figure standing on a muffin tries to catch it with a net. The scene relies entirely on the natural curl of the pastry.

Custard-filled pastry horns sit next to a metal cone mould, the tool used to shape them. Workers seem to be wrapping the pastry strip around it, showing the real technique at toy scale.

Chocolate-coated meringue drops, shaped a little like flames, are being "put out" by firefighters with a toy fire engine and a hose. The visual pun depends on the pointed tips of the meringues.

Another tanker scene: one cream puff is being filled through a hose while the finished one beside it is dusted with icing sugar. Workers on a ladder and traffic cones complete the job site.

A second version of the biscuit swings, with sandwich biscuits hanging from a wooden frame. A small figure seems to be painting the chocolate band onto one of them.

Halloween cake pops decorated as bloodshot eyeballs, one wearing a pair of glasses. An optician stands beside an eye chart made of letter cards, which makes the joke about an eye test.

Chocolate-covered coconut bars are filled by a toy cement mixer. Workers and a ladder suggest the coconut centre is being poured like concrete.

Another Halloween idea: "witch finger" biscuits with almond nails reach out of a chocolate chest. Workers with tools and a ladder appear to be prising the box open.

A coconut snowball sits on a bed of mint leaves like a giant boulder, and a man walking his dog stops to look at it. The plain background makes the scale trick very clean.

Balls rolled in coloured sprinkles are loaded into a small wooden crossbow. One has burst into a pile of sprinkles, as if it had been fired across the table.

Almond biscotti broken open, with workers and a warning sign around the crumbs. It shows how even the texture of a cut biscuit can become part of the story.

Two choux buns ride on a low-loader trailer pulled by a blue toy tractor. The pastry looks like a load of quarried stone on its way to a site.

Empty tart shells are delivered in a green farm trailer behind a tractor. The scene is a reminder that the plain base of a tart is often baked before any filling goes in.