36,000-Pound Cookie Breaks Guinness Record To Benefit Folk Art Cookie Accompanied by 4,000-Gallon Record-breaking Glass of Milk

May 17, 2003
Hendersonville, NC

Immaculate Baking Company known for making great-tasting cookies with imaginative flavors and funky packaging, today baked the world's biggest cookie. The all-natural chocolate-chip cookie, larger than a basketball court, measured over 100 feet in diameter and was baked at the future site of the Folk Art Museum next to Immaculate Baking Company's cookie factory. The event was designed to benefit the Folk Artist's Foundation (FAF), and proceeds will go towards the FAF Museum's construction.

Weather took its toll as the oven was being tested. "A deluge of rain dropped from the sky just as we uncovered the 100-foot cooking surface," said Scott Blackwell, Immaculate Baking Co.'s president and CEO. "But with dozens of volunteers working through the night, we were able to get the surface dried and the cookie laid out and baked."

Through the late night of May 16 and early morning of May 17, a crane swung 23 pallets into the sky over a handful of onlookers and down to the volunteers on the baking surface. Volunteers wore special shoe covers and hair-nets. Each pallet held 1,600 pounds of dough, divided into 20 boxes. Each box contained 10 rectangular layers of dough, with each rectangle measuring roughly two square feet, and weighing eight pounds. 50 volunteers labored for over four hours to lay out the dough on the 8,000 square-foot baking surface.

After the dough was laid out, the oven was covered and heat was pumped in from all sides. By 3:52AM the temperature inside the convective oven reached 123 degrees Fahrenheit. By 8:30 AM the temperature had climbed above 200 degrees, and the oven had already proved its ability to stand up to rain and wind in several passing squalls.

"This is a massive coming together of passion and goodwill," said Blackwell. "Knowing that these efforts will culminate in significant funds raised for the Folk Artist's Foundation and the Folk Art Museum has made everyone go above and beyond the call of duty."

"It was only a matter of time before someone would beat our record," said Jonathan Collins, representative from former World title holder Cookie Time in New Zealand. "Now that it's happened, we're glad it went to such a great company and a worthy cause."

The World's Largest Cookie officially measured 102 feet across, and weighed roughly 37,000 pounds.

All the cookies ingredients, including 30,000 eggs, 6,500 pounds of butter and 6,000 pounds of chocolate, were donated by vendors from across the US. Pieces of the giant cookie have been cut and sold to raise money for the Folk Artist's Foundation and the eventual construction of the Folk Art Museum. Folk Artists Purvis Young (Miami, FL) and Leonard Jones (Flat Rock, NC) both attended the event and gave demonstrations of their work.