Shrove Tuesday: Russian flour company dishes up world’s largest serving of pancakes

Kitchens across the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada are set to get messy today for the age-old tradition of Pancake Day.

 

The Christian holiday Shrove Tuesday marks the last day before Lent – a 40 day period of abstinence before Easter. In times past this meant it was necessary to rid the cupboards of all sugar, fats and eggs to avoid waste and temptation. Thus, Pancake Day was born.

 

Russia, however, is lucky enough to have a whole Pancake Week – a religious and folk holiday called Maslenica that takes place seven days before Lent. The festivities are a celebration of the upcoming end of winter.

 

Russian flour exporter JSC MAKFA honoured the occasion by attempting the Guinness World Records title for Largest serving of pancakes.

 

 

The batter was prepared the night before, but all the pancakes were required to be cooked on-site and served fresh on the attempt day.

 

Guinness World Records adjudicators Lucia Sinigagliesi and Glenn Pollard came along to count and verify the enormous number of pancakes.

 

After almost eight hours of non-stop pancake-making, MAKFA achieved the record with an incredible 12,716 crepes.

 

MAKFA Director Konstantin Popov was thrilled with the outcome: “Thank you, we are very happy to have this record.”