Quesnel caf\u00e9 owner spends month baking record challenging cake<\/p>\n
Published 5:10 pm Thursday, March 26, 2026<\/p>\n
A record-breaking birthday celebration for a Quesnel caf\u00e9 owner has brought the community together, following earlier plans to create what could become the largest carrot cake ever made.<\/p>\n
Granville\u2019s Coffee owner Ted Martindale marked his 80th birthday on March 25 with an ambitious goal: a 17-foot-square carrot cake, weighing more than 5,000 pounds. The effort aimed to surpass the standing Guinness World Record set in 2016 by Saint Germain Bakery and Guilford Town Centre with their 4,850 pounds cake.<\/p>\n
Now, following the event, Martindale said the scale of the project \u2013 and the response of the community \u2013 exceeded all expectations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was mainly my 80th birthday, and my wife wondering what we should do for that,\u201d Martindale told the Observer. \u201cWe went through various ideas and wound up with this one, which had to be the craziest one.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Martindale, the cake itself required weeks of preparation, with volunteers baking and freezing components well in advance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been working on it for a month,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to freeze all these cakes and borrow space from a grocery store because we don\u2019t have big walk-in freezers. We wound up with three pallets of cake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martindale said that in total, the project used roughly 1,800 pounds of carrots, 7,000 eggs, along with hundreds of pounds of other ingredients, including raisins.<\/p>\n
He admitted the undertaking was far larger than he initially imagined, and not something he plans to repeat.<\/p>\n
The most intense moment came just before the celebration, as volunteers worked late into the night assembling the massive cake.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had the big idea it was going to take about four hours to put together,\u201d Martindale said. \u201cIt wound up with 12 people working until 10 at night. We just worked like crazy without taking a break, to get it put together by my birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the cake was unveiled on March 25, the turnout was significant, with long lineups forming as Quesnel residents gathered to celebrate and take part in the historic attempt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just couldn\u2019t believe it,\u201d Martindale said. \u201cWe had no idea we were going to be overwhelmed by this. It was a complete surprise, and a very pleasant one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slices of cake were distributed to attendees on March 26, with portions shared with the local food bank.<\/p>\n
Martindale has submitted documentation to Guinness World Records and is now awaiting official confirmation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey say about 12 weeks before they even get a hold of me,\u201d he said. \u201cI put the application in maybe eight weeks ago. So I\u2019ll just keep (the documentation) until they get a hold of me and I show them all the videos and everything. We\u2019ll get in the book, hopefully.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the uncertainty of the official result, Martindale says the celebration has already achieved something meaningful.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t imagine there being a bigger birthday party than I had unless there\u2019s royalty or something,\u201d he said. \u201cThere must have been 2,000 people who showed up here. Yesterday, I had a lineup down the block, you know, to get in to see this cake.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also credited local businesses such as Phunky Fork and Tiny Treats and volunteers for making this project possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to thank Phunky Fork and Tiny Treats, which are local companies who did the decorating. Without them, I couldn\u2019t have pulled this off,\u201d Martindale said. \u201cAnd then, of course, our staff, I mean, it was a huge project. We\u2019ve been baking cakes for a whole month, so I just got all those people to thank.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Quesnel caf\u00e9 owner spends month baking record challenging cake Published 5:10 pm Thursday, March 26, 2026 A record-breaking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-563904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}