Giant cupcake: Baked over the course of 12 hours, the gigantic cup cake was made from 200 pounds of flour, 200 pounds of sugar, 200 pounds of butter and 800 eggs.

A 4ft cupcake weighing a hefty 1,224lbs has been officially recognised as the world's largest by the Guinness Book of Records.

Unveiled on Monday, in Detroit, Michigan, US, the enormous cake - with a whopping circumference¹ of 11ft - was over eight times bigger than the previous record holder².

Baked over the course of 12 hours, the gigantic cup cake was made from 200 lbs of flour, 200 lbs of sugar, 200 lbs of butter and 800 eggs.

When covered with frosting and custard, the one-of-a-kind dessert boasted 2,000,000 calories. The brainchild of American firm Gourmet³ Gift Baskets, the cupcake smashed the previous record of 151 lbs set on July 20.

Appearing at the Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise Classic Car Show in Detroit, proceeds from the sale of the cupcake went to cancer charity Passionately⁴ Pink for the Cure.

Ryan Abood, CEO of GourmetGiftBaskets.com, assembled a cupcake "dream team" including master-baker George Algarin to begin making the cake on August 12, five days before the scheduled unveiling.

"We started off with a goal of a 7,000 lb cupcake but fate intervened on Friday morning when the baking was supposed to be complete," said Mr Abood.

"The huge 8x8ft oven was opened and we found that the weight of the expanding batter⁵ crushed one of the main convection tubes blowing hot air into the heart of the cupcake causing cup-cake to collapse⁶."

Luckily, the team managed to avert⁷ disaster by rustling⁸ up a cake with only half a day to go, still managing to beat all other cupcake records in the process.

An adjudicator from Guinness had flown in from London, especially to measure the cupcake and announced the record to a crowd of hundreds at the motor show.

一个“身高”4英尺、“体重”达1224磅的杯蛋糕日前被《吉尼斯世界记录》正式认证为世界上最大的杯形蛋糕。

这块巨型蛋糕于本周一在美国密歇根州的底特律市公布于众，它的“腰围”惊人，达到11英尺，比之前的记录保持者大八倍之多。

这一庞大的杯形蛋糕经过12小时烘制而成，共用掉200磅面粉、200磅糖、200磅黄油和800个鸡蛋。

再加上糖霜和蛋奶沙司，这块独一无二的大蛋糕所含的热量高达200万卡路里。这块蛋糕的创意来自美国“美食礼品篮”公司，它打破了之前于今年7月20日创下的151磅的记录。

这块蛋糕在底特律的伍德沃得大街梦想之航经典车展上亮相，它的销售收益将捐献给“粉色激情治疗”癌症慈善组织。

“美食礼品篮”网站的首席执行官莱恩•阿布德组建了一支制作杯蛋糕的“梦之队”，其中还包括特级面包师乔治•阿尔加林。这块蛋糕于8月12日开始制作，当时距计划展出还有五天的时间。

阿布德说：“我们一开始的目标是一个7000磅的蛋糕，但就在周五早上快完工时，命运跟我们开了个玩笑。”

“当我们打开8*8英尺的巨型烤箱时，发现面糊膨胀的重量把其中一根主对流管压坏了，结果热空气吹到杯形蛋糕的中心部位，导致蛋糕坍塌。”

幸运的是，“梦之队”在离最后期限还剩半天的时间里又重新赶制了一个，避免了一场大麻烦，而且还是打破了所有其他杯形蛋糕的记录。

来自吉尼斯世界纪录的一名评审员特地从伦敦飞往底特律为这块杯蛋糕进行测量，并向前来参加车展的数百民众公布了这一记录。

Vocabulary:

whopping: exceptionally large （巨大的；异常的）

one-of-a-kind:special, unique（独一无二的）

brainchild: an idea or plan produced by creative thought（ 点子、主意）

rustle up: to prepare or find at short notice 草草弄好（rustle up a meal 急急忙忙弄出一顿饭）