A white chocolate shell forms a calendar on top of this year's Häagen-Dazs Christmas cake by Italian interior designer Paola Navone.

The cake is the latest in the dessert company's ongoing series of annual designer collaborations, which has seen them partner with Japanese studio Nendo, and Swedish design collective Front.

Navone's cake – which has been crafted in Häagen-Dazs's Paris flagship store – features 31 ice cream-filled columns of varying heights, intended to represent the 31 days from 1 December to New Year's Eve.

The designer has described the cake as "like an explosion of ice cream bricks".

"The design speaks of a refined sophistication and a playful pop," she added. "It may be split into cubes like a game for all to play and consumed day to day or within a moment."

Related story Nendo designs ice cream Village cake for Häagen-Dazs

A solid piece of white chocolate tops the dessert, which is covered in numbered milk-chocolate tablets. Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are marked out with chocolate squares covered in edible gold or silver leaf.

The cake is available in two versions: dark chocolate and almond with a brown flocked covering, and macademia nut brittle and dulce de leche with a red coating. Both editions have crispy bases, made from puffed rice.

Last year's Häagen-Dazs Christmas cake, designed by Nendo, was topped by a miniature chocolate village created to remind people of going home for the holidays.

Swedish studio Front designed a cloud-shaped ice cream for 2013's Christmas dessert, and in 2012 London designers Doshi Levien created a spherical ice cream cake that resembled a cratered moon.

Other designer cakes covered by Dezeen include sweet treats created by Viktor & Rolf and Studio Job for Design Miami, and Lucy.D's updated version of "kitsch" Viennese cakes for historic Café Landtmann.