THE EVENT
Melbourne’s Longest Cake was held for the second time on Sunday 2nd March, 2008 as part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. On this beautiful, clear and sunny Sunday morning, the Crown Promenade along the Yarra was buzzing with activity.
 
By 8:30am, Crown’s head chefs, Oliver Van Brun and Tim Clarke, gathered their team of 100 apprentice chefs and cookery students, who came from right across Victoria to assemble and decorate the cake - from Homesglen Institute of TAFE Chisolm Institute, Swinburne TAFE and the Australian Defence Force in Ballarat. Their mission was to put together a cake which would match no other cake in length, ever baked in Melbourne! It would eventually span the whole of the Crown Promenade, reaching 100 metres in total.

Enormous slabs of choc-banana cake which had been freshly baked in the Crown kitchens, were systematically assembled on tables along the length of the Yarra Promenade. The apprentices then busily commenced smoothing over a delicious cream cheese icing, and decorating the top of the cake with a colourful selection of everybody’s favourite lollies - jellybeans, chocolate freckles, jaffas, smarties, marshmallows and more!

White chocolate display plaques with corporate and business sponsor logos printed on them, were then placed along the length of the cake at one metre intervals, to exhibit who had generously assisted and sponsored the event.

Curious onlookers gathered early as the cake assembly commenced, and by 10am a massive crowd had gathered to witness the official start of the event - families out for a day with their kids, inquisitive tourists, couples out for breakfast, people enjoying a morning stroll along the Yarra - it was a spectacle for young and old to participate in, and everyone wanted to know what the cake and kafuffle was all about.

The anticipation was mounting around 10am when the entertainment program kicked off with a high energy performance by Ricki Lee Coulter. After impressing the crowd with a selection of songs, she was invited to cut the first slice of cake with Richmond footballer, Matthew Richardson.

Now it was time for everyone to tuck in eat the delicious cake, generously baked and presented by Crown. The public were able to buy a huge slice, washed down with a complementary hot or cold drink from either Nestle or San Pellegrino.

Master of Ceremonies, Sue Stanley, then lead the crowd through a jam-packed line up of special free entertainment over the next 3 hours including: The Choir of Hard Knocks, Rob Mills, Rhonda Burchmore, Anthony De Masi, Peter Combe and more.

One hundred very special volunteers donated their time to make sure this successful event ran smoothly. From assisting in selling and serving slices of cake, selling “Buzz the Bumblebee” mascot merchandise, helping to run attractions such as the Jumping Castle and providing helpful information and directions to the general public, this event couldn’t have happened without the support of our valued volunteers.

Of course this enormous cake couldn't all be eaten in one day, so at the end of the event, to ensure that the remaining cake wasn’t wasted, food distribution agency Second Bite was there to deliver it to food banks around Melbourne. In this way, the cake was able to keep on giving to the Melbourne community.
 
 
AFTER THE EVENT
It was great to see so many people there on the day, participating in the event, enjoying themselves, giving their support to our major yearly fundraising initiative and making it so successful - thank you everybody!
 
Proceeds from this event have allowed the Cerebral Palsy Support Network to deposit a further $40,000 into The Cerebral Palsy Support Network Member’s Trust Fund, and a further $3,000 to Solve! at the Royal Children’s Hospital towards research into the causes, possible prevention and treatments of Cerebral Palsy.

The CPSN is now preparing for Melbourne’s Longest Cake in 2009, with the goal of doubling its length to 200 metres!

back to top

for more images of the day click here