The province of Benguet did that recently, on Nov. 23, to be exact, when it marked the 100th anniversary of its founding by holding a week-long series of events capped by the King Carrot Festival. Featured was this humongous carrot cake the likes of which has never ever been seen – or eaten, in Benguet, or perhaps in the world. The Benguet provincial government authorities are, however, positive that the cake will get them into the Guinness Book of Records.
Long lines of people were inching their way up the stairs leading to the second-floor Ben Palispis Hall in the Benguet Provincial Capitol in La Trinidad by the time we arrived. We paid the required P10 for the privilege of viewing – and tasting – the cake and promptly squeezed ourselves into the crowed. The queue in fact started laboriously at the bottom of the hillside, where the Capitol building stands, commanding an impressive view of the valley and the sole highway leading from Baguio City. There was a trade fair going on busily at the side, where a Vegetable Run was going on – pay P100 and grab all the veggies you can in an allotted time frame – but the lure of the gigantic cake was too much to resist. Not even the prospect of a taste of the advertised giant bowl of Caesar Salad (no one seemed to know where it was and we didn’t bother to look) could deflect us. We were an hour late, but luckily, we were just in time. The cake was still intact and being photographed, and the slicing and eating was just about to begin. The guest of honor was Sen. Edgardo Angara, however, was no longer around, so we guessed that carrot cake didn’t particularly appeal to him.
Imagine Gulliver flat on the ground and surrounded by hordes of Lilliputians. That’s how the cake looked on the long table(s) on which it was stretched out, as the lines of viewers filed slowly past and were herded off, after being handed a plastic saucer with a hefty slice of the cake on it. The thought of tasting this cake baked by so many cooks and so many hands was rather daunting, at first, but after learning that the famed Baguio Country Club (BCC) was responsible for baking it, our qualms disappeared.
Sammy Torres, BCC food and beverage manager, stood by the cake, supervising its slicing by his team of plastic-gloved bakers. The cake, he told us, was four feet wide, one foot high, and weighed 70 kilograms. It had taken 10 bakers, working 16 hours a day for five days to bake the cake. This was done in separate pans and then assembled in a procedure that took 10 hours. Then it had to be sculpted into the shape of a carrot, fat at the top where the leaves sprout, and tapering off to the tip. To finish off, fondant icing of light orange and green then had to be spread in the proper places and all the carrot décor arranged. Proper care had to be taken in every aspect of the preparation, of course, as not only was verisimilitude a concern, but also the fact that so many people were going to be served.
Credit for the literally monumental achievement was given to baking team leader chef Art Nucaza, a veritable culinary veteran with 12 years experience, and kitchen artist Samuel Tayaban, two years now in the BCC kitchens.
"The Benguet officials asked our general manager Anthony de Leo if we could do it, and we said yes!" said Torres.
The BCC bakeshop, incidentally, is known for its delicious apple pie (the best in Baguio, say people who have tried it) and its raisin bread, rivaling that made by the Good Shepherd Sisters.
And how was the carrot cake? It was delicious – better than any we’ve tasted in the lowlands!
Here’s the recipe, furnished us by a kind Baguio newshen, since the rather harassed but proudly beaming Torres had run out of copies, just in case you’d like to try it one day for your own 100th birthday party:
For the cake:
400 kilos grated raw carrots
450 kilos white sugar
280 kilos all-purpose flour
100 grams salt
300 grams cinnamon powder
300 grams baking powder
300 grams baking soda
180 grams allspice
150 grams cloves
2,400 pieces eggs
300 liters corn oil
30 kilos walnuts
For the fondant carrot icing:
400 kilos grated raw carrots
450 kilos white sugar
280 kilos all-purpose flour
100 grams salt
300 grams cinnamon powder
300 grams baking powder
300 grams baking soda
180 grams allspice
150 grams cloves
2,400 pieces eggs
300 liters corn oil
30 kilos walnuts
35 kilos powdered sugar
1.5 gallons glycerin
2.5 gallons glucose
10 kilos lemons
Mix and bake in batches, and then ice, as you would any ordinary cake (don’t ask us about the arithmetic), or better, get the Baguio Country Club to repeat their feat.