A tonne of delicious dirt: Bengaluru bakers set world record for largest dirt pudding cake

Sitting in its massive steel container, garnished with multi-coloured candy and sugared flowers sitting on a bed of green ‘leaves’ and brown dirt, it doesn’t look like a cake so much as a garden landscape in miniature. But as a single bite later on proves, this garden of earthly delights is all dessert, and a record-breaking one at that.

Crafted over a little over nine hours from 9pm on Saturday to 8.15am on Sunday by a team of four amateur Bengaluru bakers at The Park hotel, this dirt pudding cake has set the Guinness World Record for the largest such cake ever made at a whopping 1,078 Kg.

And it wasn’t just one night’s work that went into this record-setting attempt, says Poonam Ankur Shrishrimal, who made the cake along with fellow baking enthusiasts Danish Ali, Archana Diwan and Nidhi Bagri. “We’ve been working since February for this. There are a lot of rules and procedures to follow and guidelines to fulfill for setting a Guinness Record,” she explains.  

“This was a ‘cakewalk’ only because of our passion and love for baking,” she adds.

This is the second record-setting attempt for the Bangalore Baking Buddies, as the foursome calls themselves, after their entry into the Limca Book of Records in 2014 for India’s largest caricature cake. That attempt saw them create a 6.1ft tall, 2.9ft wide Santa Claus standing on one leg, and weighing an impressive 302 Kg.

Their current record involved a whopping 220 Kg of cream cheese, 190 litres of whipping cream, 550 Kg of crushed sandwich cookies, 65 Kg of sugar, 180 litres of milk, 45 Kg of custard powder, 35 Kg of candy, 85 Kg of butter and 35 Kg of garnish.

As Poonam explains, “It’s cake all the way through. According to the Guinness guidelines, we are not allowed to add anything extra to the cake to give it shape or support.”

The adjudicating official for Guinness World Records, Rishi Nath, says that there are strict guidelines to be followed for a food record. “Yesterday (Saturday), a food inspector was called in to ensure that the strictest standards of hygiene are met, that all the ingredients used are appropriate and quality ingredients.”

Poonam explains that even the recipe for the cake had to be a Guinness-approved traditional dirt pudding cake recipe.

The Bangalore Baking Buddies cutting the cake for distribution

All of which was for the best, since one of the rules also states that the entire record-setting food item must be distributed and consumed on the same day as the record was set. The Bangalore Baking Buddies tied up with a number of schools and NGOs in the city for children to visit The Park and ensure that the giant cake was eaten by the end of the day.

"We feel that it is more humanitarian if all the food involved in the setting of a record is consumed and nothing goes to waste. We do not support the wastage of food,” says Rishi.