Paphos claims record cake bid as Limassol pulls out

LIMASSOL’S plans to bake the world’s largest Christmas cake have fallen flat after Paphos claimed yesterday it had been chewing on the idea for months.

The world largest Christmas cake was to have been started on Sunday and completed at Limassol’s Tsirion Stadium on December 15.

The cake was to weigh 80 tons in an attempt to break the current Guinness record of 58.08 tons – held by a city in Mexico – and would have been cut into 25,000 pieces with the recipe calling for 250,000 eggs, 17 tons of flour, three tons of sugar and five tons of honey.

Now Limassol has moved over to let Paphos take the glory after the town’s Mayor Phidias Sarikas said they had had the cake idea on the back burner for months.

The Paphos cake is set to weigh around 60 tons.

“We at Paphos Municipality have been studying the idea for the past four months,” Sarikas said yesterday. “We even called a consultant in from Greece.”

The Paphos attempt to enter the Guinness Book of Records will take place on New Year’s Eve. Sarikas said the Municipality had been assured by the Guinness organisation that the “Vasilopitta” (Traditional Greek New Year’s Cake) qualifies as a Christmas cake.

Sarikas said he had not expected Limassol to take up the same challenge, but would not rule out the possibility that “great minds thinking alike”.

An announcement from the Limassol organisers yesterday afternoon said they had stopped all plans and preparations for making the cake.

It said the initial idea had been to break the current Guinness record. “We believe the initial idea will be accomplished and it’s unnecessary for such a small country to produce two similar products in such a short time,” the announcement said.

“We wish the Paphos Municipality the best of luck.”

Limassol Municipality representative Kleo Alexandrou admitted to the Cyprus Mail that they were a bit disappointed. “But we don’t want a confrontation with Paphos. It wouldn’t be right to bicker over this,” he said.

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