|
| A member of the Dining Services staff works on one piece of what will be the world's largest strawberry shortcake. |
The numbers will be staggering, but it will be so sweet to eat. This April 29, the University of Maryland will celebrate its 8th annual Maryland Day open house with a strawberry shortcake. A very BIG strawberry shortcake. In fact, it is being described as the world's largest - all to honor the university's 150th Anniversary.
Just how big will it be? Dining Services Director Pat Higgins says simply, "It's a monster!" 16 feet by 24 feet in diameter, the cake consists of 3 layers and is 8 inches high. It will weigh 5,040 pounds. There should be enough to feed 50,000 guests! And anyone who eats a piece will have to do a lot of walking on Maryland Day. This strawberry shortcake packs an estimated 6,500,000 calories!
Dining Services says this cake will be bit bigger than the current record holder from the Philippine Islands.
HOW IT GOT STARTED
The idea for the giant cake popped up during a 150th Anniversary planning meeting last year. "We selected the strawberry shortcake," says Dining Services Associate Director Joe Mullineaux, "because it reflects flavors and tastes from this area in 1856 (March 6, 1856 is the day this institution was chartered) that are still popular today." In fact, the cake is based on a 19th-century recipe.
|
| Pastry Chef Jeff Russo works on the giant seal decoration that will top the strawberry shortcake. Click on the picture for a slide show. |
A JIGSAW PUZZLE
Once the decision was made to go forward with the cake, there was only one person to manage the job - Chef Jeff Russo. Before coming to Maryland, he was a pastry chef at the Waldorf and Plaza Hotels in New York City. And his two key assistants, Marie Michel and Miaolan Li - had worked at the Watergate Bakery. They knew what to do, and how to do it.
But they also knew that building a giant cake like this would take time, and resources. It would cost some $9,000 for the materials to make the cake. Dining Services was able to get the Pillsbury unit of General Mills to help defray the cost.
Over the past three months, Russo and his team started mixing and baking the 170 pieces that will make up the larger cake. And that doesn't count the decorations that will go on top - including a giant UM seal. It's being made not only to be delicious and moist - but to last through several hours, as it is cut and served during Maryland Day.
It took so long to make, says Mullineaux, because "the bakery still had to make the university's daily requirements of breads, cakes and pastry." In fact, Chef Russo says this was "an enjoyable challenge" given the fact that his Dining Services team produces more than 50,000 cupcakes, 12,000 cakes, 395,000 scoops of ice cream, 700,000 dinner rolls, 45,000 éclairs and more than ONE MILLION cookies (not to mention other sweets) each year! Even with their regular duties, Russo and team still finished baking four days ahead of schedule!
|
| Russo shows off one of the giant chocolate roses that will be part of the cake decorations. Click on the picture for a slide show. |
FREEZER READY
Now complete, the 170 shortcake puzzle pieces are being kept in a giant walk-in freezer in Dining Service's South Campus facility, as well as freezers at the Comcast Center.
Russo is also working on a university seal that will go in the center of the cake. It is six feet in diameter and has a special glaze on it. The cake will also feature decorations that include giant chocolate roses and other flowers, ribbons and leaves with edible gold leaf.
One smaller version of the cake will be taken to radio station Mix 107.3 in Washington, D.C. for the Jack Diamond Morning Show on Friday, April 28 as part of a "Taste of Maryland" promotion for Maryland Day. And a big piece of the Hornbake Plaza cake will be taken to the President's hospitality suite on Maryland Day.
ASSEMBLING THE CAKE
It is going to take an all nighter to assemble this "world's largest" strawberry shortcake. Russo says he'll be arriving on campus about midnight on April 29th to prepare, and his team will come in about an hour later. A refrigerated truck will pick up the 170 frozen "jigsaw" pieces of the cake and everything else that will be needed, and take it all to a giant table under a 40' by 60' tent on Maryland's Hornbake Plaza.
If everything goes just right, the giant cake will be assembled and ready to go for Maryland Day opening ceremonies at 10 a.m. University President Dr. C.D. Mote, Jr., says, "We welcome the entire community to help us kick off Maryland Day with a piece of the world's largest strawberry shortcake."
A Strawberry Shortcake Recipe
to Feed 50,000 People
For the cake: take 1,000 pounds of flour, mix in 1,249 pounds of sugar, 21 pounds of salt, 62.44 pounds of baking powder, 667 pounds of eggs, 999 pounds of milk, 499.5 pounds of cake shortening and 3.5 quarts of vanilla extract. Mix well and bake!
For the frosting: take 1,530 pounds of confectionary sugar, 1 quart of vanillin, 387.6 pounds of Icing shortening and 40.75 gallons of warm water and mix well.
For the filling:
use 1440 pounds of strawberry filling between the layers, and 43 gallons of a strawberry simple syrup poured directly on the cakes to keep them moist.
For the logo: take 90 pounds of white chocolate, 40 pounds of piping gel and 70 pounds of red, yellow, orange and black food coloring paste, and arrange until it looks like the University of Maryland logo!
|
|
For Immediate Release
Information provided by the Office of University Communications
