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Swiss village to make world’s biggest meringue

The town of Gruyères will attempt to make the world’s biggest ever meringue this weekend as part of a festival celebrating its famous double cream.

Published: 1 June 2016 12:14 CEST
Swiss village to make world’s biggest meringue
Meringues and double cream is a speciality of La Gruyère region. Photo: Terroir Fribourg

The village’s first ever Double Cream Festival kicks off on Saturday June 4th and will culminate in the world record attempt on Sunday.

La Gruyère double cream is a speciality of the area and is often served with meringues, also made widely in the Fribourg region.

“Organizers were looking for a special event for the festival, and what accompanies double cream best but meringues?” local artisan chocolatier Richard Uldry told daily paper Le Matin.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this particular record  is not one that is frequently contested. It was set in 1986 by the Swiss village of Meiringen in the canton of Bern, where the meringue is said to have been invented in about 1600.

That meringue was 2.4 metres long and 1.5m wide.

On Sunday Gruyères intends to royally smash Meiringen’s record by constructing a 100 metre-long meringue in the classic Swiss ‘ripple’ shape, put together by nine artisan meringue-makers in the village.

Some 1,000 egg whites and 100 kilos of sugar will be needed to construct the giant meringue, predict organizers.

Once made, the sweet treat will be served with dollops of double cream to members of the public attending the festival.

The main aim of the festival is to “honour the richness of the gastronomy in La Gruyère and make double cream better known beyond cantonal and national borders”, organizers said.

The price of a ticket to the festival includes 10 tastings of double cream, served within different sweet and savoury dishes including truffles, soup, cakes and macaroni cheese.

The festival will also feature a cream-making demonstration, live folk music, a cow procession and an exhibition of cream spoons. 

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KEBAB

Berliners break world record with 423kg döner kebab

The largest döner kebab in the world was served at the Mall of Berlin on Friday, breaking the previous world record held by Australians from 2004.

Published: 23 October 2017 10:56 CEST
Berliners break world record with 423kg döner kebab
Photo: DPA.

Back then, an Australian team had produced a 413 kilogram döner kebab. But Berliners managed to break that record by a narrow margin in the creation of a giant döner that was even larger, weighing in at 423.5 kilograms.

“More gigantic, meatier, juicier and saucier – our döner kebab is simply gigantic,” said morning presenter Big Moe of 98.8 KISS FM. The winning team consisted of several other employees from the Berlin-based radio station.

Originally the giant döner weighed 847 kilograms when put on the scales. But according to judge Olaf Kuchenbecker from the Rekord-Institut für Deutschland (RID), it could not be judged as a whole because at the time of weighing the flatbread consisted of two parts.

The giant döner was therefore cut into two pieces and “the larger piece broke the record,” Kuchenbecker said.

“The fact that there are now two portions of döner at around 423.5 kilos each is absolutely amazing! We have set the world record twice and it tastes great,” said Big Moe.

For those skeptical of the quality of the ingredients used in creating a humongous version of Germany's favoured fast food, the giant kebab was prepared using real flatbread and filled with classic components such as döner meat, lettuce and red and white cabbage.

The event drew in hundreds of spectators. Photo: DPA.

“The kebab was made for consumption,” said programme director at KISS FM, York Strempel.

“It had to be not only tasty and big, but also top quality,” Strempel added.

But the team used herb sauce rather than garlic sauce that döner is traditionally served with, as this would have been “offensive in terms of smell” for a kebab of this size, according to Kuchenbecker.

After the final weigh-in, the kebab was cut up and distributed among a crowd of around 400 lucky spectators free of charge.

SEE ALSO: This is what is really inside your Döner kebab