Mandaue dishes out biggest bibingka

The world’s biggest rice cake or bibingka will be served today in the Mandaue City Sports Complex.

The bibingka is set to break Korea’s record in the “Guinness Book of World Records” for the biggest rice cake.

Mandaue City’s rice cake is 182 square meters in area with a diameter of 50 feet and thickness of three inches.

Ten metal drums were used as ovens. Each drum can hold two pans of bibingka.

The cooking of the bibingka started yesterday afternoon.

At least 13,500 coconuts were shredded and mixed with water to produce coconut milk.

Afterwards, the coconut milk was mixed with sugar and for the “caramelizing” process.

Yeast and then rice flour were added to the mixture that was placed in the oven after an hour.

Christine Cortes of the Mayol family, pioneering makers of bibingka in the city, said that if they will just observe proper timing, the bibingka will not come out soft.

Cortes is from the sixth generation of the Mayol family. A member of the fifth generation, Crispina Cortes, 60, and her youngest brother, Manuel Mayol, 46, helped cook the bibingka yesterday.

Manuel told Cebu Daily News that their parents were able to raise a brood of eight by making and selling bibingka.

He said he is thankful to the local government for the move to make the biggest bibingka so that it will be remembered as the tastiest delicacy in the city.

Cabanero said that bibingka represents the city of Mandaue, which is known for its tasty delicacies.

She said the city is among the top four makers of rice cake in the world.

Most ingredients were donated by the private sector as their part in promoting the city of Mandaue.

Louella Cabanero, head of Department of Tourism, told reporters that the project involved all sectors.

“Most of our materials were donated. This event gets the community to participate in promoting the city,” Cabanero said.

Kitchen utensils were borrowed from the Department of Education (DepEd).

Other ingredients like 61 sacks of rice were donated by three rice traders in the city; at least 60 sacks of sugar were from Ong King-king while the oven for cooking rice bread was donated by San Miguel Corp., IPI and Ginebra.

Other materials were taken from the 27 barangays in the city. These include banana leaves and 13,500 coconuts.

But with their shortage of 4,000 coconuts heads, Cabanero said that they got more from the northern towns and a contact that supplied processed coconut milk.

At least 168 teachers and 100 students helped one other make the rice cake.

The 100 students from different schools in Mandaue were clustered into groups of 10 to cook the bibingka in shifts. Each cluster was guided by six teachers to produce at least 1,500 pieces of square rice cake, each about 40 x 40 centimeters.

When it will be finished it will be arranged in a big circle in the sports complex basketball court.