Record-breaking cupcake jolts Dream Cruise

Royal Oak -- Woodward Dream Cruise attendees' attention was ripped away from the seemingly endless parade of classic cars on Saturday afternoon thanks to Ryan Abood and his giant cupcake.

Abood, owner of GourmetGiftBaskets.com, decided four weeks ago to make a bit of sweet history that would get him recognized by Guinness World Records. He and a team of 30 succeeded in creating a 4-foot-tall cupcake that was 10 feet wide and weighed 1,224 pounds.

Accomplishing such a feat also had a philanthropic purpose. Proceeds generated from selling pieces of the monstrous cupcake and 5,000 smaller cupcakes benefited the Susan G. Komen Passionately Pink for the Cure, Abood said.

What a drives a man to create a gargantuan cupcake filled with 2 million calories?

"I was sitting at my desk and I heard about what was then the world's largest cupcake and it weighed 151 pounds," said Abood, 30, of Manchester, N.H. "I felt that a world record should be breathtaking, awe-inspiring, have a wow factor. And 151 pounds didn't do it."

So the yummy gauntlet was before Abood and he decided to best the world record. In the heat of making this decision, Abood said a friend from Michigan suggested he come to the state during the Dream Cruise.

"I thought it was a perfect idea to bring it to the Dream Cruise," said Abood, who had never heard of the annual event. "I think of cupcakes of being classic things from the 1950s and '60s American history. What better then to bring the world's largest cupcake to the world's largest car show?"

But Abood admits that there were lumps in the batter. On Friday morning, the original cupcake of his Guinness dreams that was to weigh 7,000 pounds was destroyed due to technical difficulties. The batter separated and it wouldn't stick together. Quickly, the dream was scaled back using an estimated 200 pounds of flour, 200 pounds of sugar, 200 pounds of butter and oil and 1,000 eggs.

And with the help of Jensen Industries in Whitmore Lake, which makes industrial equipment, Abood was able to create his cupcake. The company created an 8-foot by 8-foot convection oven to hold the confectionary creation. The cupcake cooking time was eight and a half hours.

When completed, the cupcake was loaded carefully onto a refrigerated truck and driven from Whitmore Lake to the parking lot of Firestone at Woodward Avenue and 13 Mile in Royal Oak.

The cupcake was then unloaded with the help of a forklift and placed on a huge floor scale. Team Cupcake then applied the tooth-numbing pink frosting and ribbons.

Carl Saville, an adjudicator for Guinness World Records, traveled from his London, England office to make sure the cupcake met all of the world record specifications. Saville stressed that the cupcake had to look like a normal cupcake and be edible.

He waited almost two hours, watching and taking pictures, as the cupcake was readied for its big weigh-in. When it was announced that the cupcake was in fact the new record holder, dozens of spectators cheered, clapped and snapped pictures like it was a rock star. And Abood immediately called his mom back in New Hampshire and shared the good news.

While the cupcake wasn't what Abood originally dreamt of, it was still pretty impressive to Bridgette Whittaker, a spectator and cruise volunteer.

"It's pretty weird to see a big cupcake," said the 16-year-old Detroiter. "I would think it would be a bit bigger since it was competing for a world record. But it is still something special, something new to my eye."

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