Mother and child examine one of the floats, built from recycled materials, which joined the parade in this year’s Strawberry Festival at Benguet capital town, La Trinidad, on Saturday (Mar. 23). La Trinidad is known for its vast strawberry farms. Photo by EV Espiritu
LA TRINIDAD, BENGUET — Residents and tourists had a taste of a giant strawberry cake during this year’s Strawberry Festival on Saturday (Mar. 23).
La Trinidad, the capital town of Benguet province, secured the Guinness World Record for baking the largest strawberry shortcake in 2004 which weighed 9.6 tons.
Homegrown bakery Valley Bread baked a 1.6-ton replica of the large shortcake for the annual festival.
The first 100 slices of the giant shortcake were given out for free at the town’s Lednicky Hall at 11 a.m.
The rest of the 12,000 slices were given out to people, who paid P20 for a taste of the cake which stood 1.5 meters tall, 1.8 meters wide, and 2.5 meters long.
Sharon Lorenzo, Valley Bread public relations manager, said they used 3,000 eggs and 600 kilos of sweet Charlie strawberries grown in La Trinidad.
A traditionally garbed Benguet lass ride on one of the floats, built from recycled materials, which joined the parade in this year’s Strawberry Festival at Benguet capital town, La Trinidad, on Saturday (Mar. 23). La Trinidad is known for its vast strawberry farms. Photo by EV Espiritu
“All ingredients were sourced locally. We need to help our local industry,” Lorenzo said. “It took us a month to prepare and make the cake.”
Before the cake was shared, the community staged a float parade that was accompanied by street dancers.
All 14 floats were made of recyclable materials like old tarpaulin sheets, used sacks, plastic bottles, plastic cups, old slippers, and candy wrappers, part of the town’s campaign for environmental protection.
Most of the float designs featured the town’s products, the strawberry, flowers, and vegetables.
Each float was set on wheels, and was pushed manually by participants through a kilometer-long parade route, to reduce air pollution, said Mayor Romeo Salda.