Massive Mexico Mother's Day cake eyes record book

MEXICO CITY May 11 (Reuters Life!) - A team of Mexican bakers is hoping to get into the Guinness Book of Records with a massive 2.2 metric ton Mother's Day cake they say is the biggest made with zero-calorie sweetener rather than sugar.

The heart-shaped yellow-iced cake, normal height but some 5 meters (16 feet) across, took 23 people a week to bake and fed around 150 mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers at an event on Thursday, when Mother's Day was celebrated here.

"Within a week they will be calling us to give us the good news that Mexico has a new Guinness record," said organizer Fernando Trueba.

Organizers want to promote artificial sweeteners in Mexico, where obesity is increasingly widespread and some 7 million people suffer from diabetes. Sweet-toothed Mexicans are some of the world's biggest guzzlers of sugary fizzy drinks.

"We have a tendency to eat what we shouldn't and blame ourselves. This is a way to cook without feeling guilty," actress Mayrin Villanueva said as she cut the cake.

Edged with garish blue icing, the cake contained a stomach-churning 420 kg (926 lb) of margarine, 400 kg (881 lb) of eggs, 210 kg (463 lb) of strawberries and 290 kg (639 lb) of whipping cream. It used 92 kg (203 lb) of sweetener.