Stories
The story of our 80 Years Birthday Cake
In 2019, LLBG celebrated its 80th birthday with fantastic parties for all co-workers in our production countries: Belgium, Poland, the Czech Republic and Turkey. One thing was clear from the very beginning: we had to bake something for the occasion. Something special.
The Belgian cake
“Creating a spectacular cake for 2.000 people is quite a challenge”, says our master patissier Philippe. “It all started with a brainstorming session. What theme do we choose, which cake structure, what kind of filling, … Together with a group of colleagues, I started experimenting and creating recipes. It was really a team effort, we wanted to involve all our Belgian production sites. “We chose to go Belgian all the way. And what is more Belgian than biscoff and strawberries? These fruits would be at their best during the event, which took place end of May.”
“We baked the cakes in Fernelmont, the only production site that doesn’t work during the weekends. So we had time to bake and experiment. The day itself, we still had to finish and decorate the cakes and transport them to the event hall in Ghent. Quite a nervous moment! Seeing the cakes enter the stage on that huge, specially made platform that I had designed myself, was marvelous.”
80 Years Birthday cake: the making-of
Take a look behind the scenes and discover how we created our delicious birthday cake!
The Polish cake
“For the Polish event, we made the same strawberry-biscoff cake as in Belgium”, Philippe says. “Apparently, strawberry is the Poles favorite fruit flavor as well. We sent about 100 cakes to Warsaw, travelling 1.200 kilometres by truck, and they only arrived just in time!”
The Czech cake
“Our Czech colleagues went for a chocolate cake with apricots and caramel. Because of its size (127 cm high) and weight (50 kg), it was a challenge getting it through the rain and onto the stage. “Our master patissier took precautions and made the cake construction extra solid with wooden fortifications. We prayed that our CEO Guido wouldn’t cut in them, because then the knife would get stuck. Guess what… he did! Luckily we managed to solve it so everyone could have a taste after all.”
The Turkish cake
In Turkey, we made 350 mini-versions of the original Belgian strawberry cake and added ladyfingers and merengue to it.