DOES PLANT CITY STILL HOLD THE SURFACE-AREA RECORD?
In August 1998, Watsonville, California made the largest strawberry shortcake on record with a 175-foot by four-foot version created during the city’s Strawberry Dessert Festival. The bakers made 260 sheet cakes, used 2,400 pounds of berries, and scooped on 600 pounds of whipped topping.
According to the account in the book, “Remembering Plant City: Tales from the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World,” by Gil Gott, local residents at the time could not idly sit by in disgrace and let this affront to strawberry supremacy go unchallenged. Several residents and city leaders spent the intervening months putting together a plan to take the crown. Involving volunteers with expertise in logistics, construction, and shortcake, a committee worked out the details. Gott took on the organization, and Betty Patton was his right-hand assistant. Mac Smith served as the chairman of the committee, and brought Tampa Bay Buccaneers Pro-Bowler Leroy Selman to the attempt.
Across the street from what is now the Robert W. Willaford Railroad Museum, in McCall Park, builders put together a table made from 26 4’x8’ sheets of plywood. Volunteers covered the table with food grade plastic. The Florida Strawberry Grower’s Association donated 480 flats of strawberries. Crystals International donated 500 pounds of sugar. At least 150 volunteers de-stemmed the berries at St. Clement Catholic Church, and added the sugar. These processed berries filled 107 five-gallon containers. Winn-Dixie donated 678 half sheets of shortcake. All of this, along with 40 cases of whipped topping and another 45 flats of whole berries, were loaded onto a refrigerated trailer and taken to McCall Park in downtown.
The City of Plant City blocked off surrounding streets. The Plant City Police Department was on hand to control the throngs of people, and Plant City Fire and Rescue stood by in case of a shortcake disaster. Representatives from the Health Department made sure the food handling didn’t violate any safety regulations. The city engineer came to sign off on the exact measurements. At 4:00 p.m. the trailer doors opened and more than 300 volunteers took on the task. While hundreds of spectators watched, in a mere 35 minutes the shortcake was completed. A CPA firm audited the entire process, and a federal judge attended to authenticate the product.
On that historic Sunday afternoon, in addition to its place as Winter Strawberry Capital of the World, Plant City also became the Strawberry Shortcake Capital of the World. The fruit—and shortcake—of their labor was approximately 102 feet long and 8 feet wide. It measured 827.44 square feet, and weighed 8,150 pounds—eclipsing all shortcakes that had come before. At 5:15 p.m. the gates opened and the crowd flooded in to consume thousands of pieces of history. Fortunately, for the eaters, the taste of the Plant City record shortcake was far superior to its predecessor since the Plant City version used Florida Strawberries rather than the inferior California strawberry.
“The Guinness Book of World Records” listed the Plant City strawberry shortcake in its 2000 edition. “This is a great occasion for me, to be part of this world record-setting event,” Selmon said on that momentous day.
But time has passed, and according to the Guinness Book, the current record holder for the largest strawberry shortcake is the Municipality of La Trinidad in the Philippines. Residents made teh cake at the La Trinidad Strawberry Festival in March 2004. This creation weighed 21,213.40 pounds. In an egregious oversight, no dimensions are listed. It is possible the Philippine shortcake was merely thicker, and the Plant City shortcake had a greater surface area—and so still holds the surface area world record—no one will ever know for sure. The only way to clearly settle this disputed title is for Plant City to once again get together to build a strawberry shortcake—one that weighs 21,214 pounds.
