Edible art: Towering gingerbread monolith appears in San Francisco on Christmas Day

The pillar, held together with icing, collapsed just a day later

This gingerbread monolith was found in San Francisco on December 25. AP

A nearly seven-foot-tall monolith made of gingerbread mysteriously appeared on a San Francisco hilltop on Christmas Day, before collapsing the very next day.

The three-sided tower, held together by icing and decorated with a few gumdrops, delighted the US city on Friday when word spread about its existence.

Ananda Sharma told local radio station KQED-FM he climbed to Corona Heights Park to see the sunrise when he spotted what he thought was a big post. He said he smelled the scent of gingerbread before realising what it was.

The tasty tower collapsed was held together by icing and decorated with a few gumdrops. AP

“It made me smile. I wonder who did it, and when they put it there,” he said.

People trekked to the park throughout the day, even as light rain fell on the ephemeral, edible art object.

Phil Ginsburg, head of the city's Recreation and Parks Department, told KQED that staff would not remove the monument “until the cookie crumbles".

It did by Saturday morning, a fitting end to what was surely an homage to the discovery and swift disappearance of a shining metal monolith in Utah's red-rock desert last month. It became a subject of fascination around the world as it evoked the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and drew speculation about its otherworldly origins.

The still-anonymous creator of the Utah monument did not secure permission to plant the hollow, stainless steel object on public land.

A similar metal structure was found and quickly disappeared on a hill in northern Romania. Days later, another monolith was discovered at the pinnacle of a trail in Atascadero, California, but it was later dismantled by a group of young men, city officials said.