World's Biggest Cookie to Fund American Folk Art Museum

May 08, 2003
Flat Rock, NC

Immaculate Baking Company, known for making great-tasting cookies with imaginative flavors and funky packaging, has announced the imminent creation of the world's biggest cookie. The all-natural chocolate-chip cookie will be larger than a basketball court, measuring over 100 feet in diameter. It will be baked on May 17, 2003, in Hendersonville, North Carolina, at the future site of the Folk Art Museum next to Immaculate Baking Company's cookie factory. The event will benefit the Folk Artist's Foundation (FAF), and proceeds will go towards the FAF Museum's construction.

"There's no question that this cookie will taste great," says Scott Blackwell, Immaculate Baking Co.'s president and CEO. "But what's more important is that it will accomplish two critical missions: It will bring the world record back to the US – which should be the case when it comes to chocolate-chip cookies – and it will raise the initial funds to create the Folk Art Museum."

Blackwell, whose personal collection of over 600 works of folk art will form the museum's initial collection, has been an advocate for folk art and folk artists for over a decade. Immaculate Baking Company features folk art on its award-winning packaging and maintains strong relationships with numerous folk artists regionally and nationally.

This is One Big Cookie!

• Size: 100 feet in diameter = basketball court; 1/3 football field; a UFO; the length of a Blue Whale or Brachiosaurus; length of a Boeing 737; width of Radio City Music Hall stage
• Weight: 40,000 pounds =  one F-15B aircraft; four elephants; seven full-sized pickup trucks; one 40,000-pound bag of feathers; three tyrannosaurus rex dinosaurs.

• All-natural ingredients donated by suppliers in the US and abroad:
• 6,000 pounds of semi-sweet chocolate chunks (over 13,000,000)
• 12,200 pounds of unbleached flour
• 6,525 pounds of unsalted butter
• 5,000 pounds of granulated sugar
• 3,370 pounds of dark brown sugar
• 184 pounds of salt
• 79 pounds of baking soda
• 30,000 whole eggs
• 10 gallons of pure vanilla
• Consistency: Initially soft and moist
• Taste: Yum!
• An amazing oven: The world's biggest cookie will be baked in a structureless oven, utilizing convective heat to bake the cookie in approximately five to six hours. This one-of-a-kind, 7,850 square foot oven is being designed specially for the big cookie. If you want to know more about it, let us know!

An excellent cause: The cookie will be cut and sold, and 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the Museum Fund for the Folk Artist's Foundation.

About the Folk Artist's Foundation:
The Folk Artist's Foundation provides encouragement, support (financial and other) and exposure for artists working in the folk-art tradition. Folk-art is generally defined as art created by artists who lack formal training. The foundation's efforts are based on the recognition of – and profound respect for – the inherent talent and determination of the self-taught artist, as well as appreciation for the heartfelt beauty, simplicity and integrity of this magnificent art form. The Folk Artist's Museum will be built next to Immaculate Baking Company's cookie factory in Hendersonville, NC. The initial collection will include works by R. A. Miller, Mose Tolliver, and Leonard Jones.About Immaculate Baking Company

Since starting in 1995 with two original cookie flavors, Immaculate Baking Company has rapidly expanded to produce not only its award-winning, unique cookies, but also the Mojo (chocolate-covered, bite-sized pieces of handmade biscotti), various gift sets and handmade biscotti. For more information about Immaculate Baking Company, please visit www.immaculatebaking.com