Gulf Hotel loses world record for largest cake

The Gulf Hotel in Bahrain has lost the world record for the largest tiramisu in culinary history.

In March, more than 100 Gulf Hotel employees toiled for four-and-a-half hours to put together a 1,969kg version of the coffee-flavoured Italian dessert - made to mark the 30th anniversary of the hotel's Italian restaurant La Pergola, said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

Around 10,000 eggs and industrial amounts of sugar, flour and coffee went into tiramisu's making - but now, a team of 30 pastry chefs and 180 other volunteers in Gemona, Italy have broken the record.

They made a tiramisu weighing 3,015kg on Saturday, according to a report on English language Italian news website The Local.

The dish was made as part of a competition among local shopkeepers in the town, organised by the Conserva association.

Gulf Hotel general manager Rahim Abu Omar told the GDN that the new world record would encourage them to pursue even greater achievements in future.

"We are proud to have achieved the world record and it doesn't matter if we lost it as we took it from someone else and that's how it goes," he said.

"We have a journey ahead of us and this new world record will only encourage us to do more.

"I also have to say that the world record has brought great benefits to the hotel, including the publicity that promoted the Gulf Hotel worldwide and also the chance that we got to give back to society as most of the cake was given to welfare societies."

The Gulf Hotel first entered the Guinness World Records by preparing the world's largest kabsa in 2002.

Abu Omar said the hotel was not planning any new culinary records at the moment - but anything is possible.

"We have not planned anything yet but we never know when the next great step will be," he said.

"We have been at the top of the culinary field for a very long time and we will maintain that." - TradeArabia News Service