PIC: Cr Paul Tully with a super sized lamington!
The Ipswich Turf Club will host Tuesday's record attempt to create the world's largest lamington.
The event is the brainchild of Ipswich Councillor and local historian Paul Tully and Mayor Paul Pisasale both of whom have secured their own claim to fame in the Guinness Book of Records.
As a 17 year old University of Queensland student in 1969, Paul Tully became the world potato crisp eating champion downing 30 packets of crisps in 24 minutes 33.6 seconds without a drink.
Eating records were removed from official Guinness records in 1990 with Cr Tully retiring undefeated as the world champion.
Two years ago, Mayor Paul Pisasale became the proud owner of the largest tea set collection in the world, a feat formally recognised by the Guinness Book of Records.
On Tuesday - Australia's National Lamington Day - the political duo's culinary skills will combine with a team of professional chefs to create a monster lamington in excess of one tonne, half the size of a family sedan and the equivalent of more than 20,000 standard size lamingtons.
Cr Tully has been researching the history of the Australian lamington for more than a decade.
"The most-plausible theory is they were named after Lord Lamington, Queensland Governor from 1896 to 1901, when a maid-servant accidentally dropped some sponge cake in melted chocolate and then tossed the concoction into some desiccated coconut to hide her embarrassment."
He said they were an instant hit at Government House in Brisbane with Lord Lamington once describing them as "those poofy woolly biscuits".
At the 1998 Constitutional Convention in Canberra, lamingtons featured in the debate on the merits of an Australian republic with Cr Tully - an elected Queensland delegate - calling Lord Lamington's gastronomic creation as the "one, solitary positive achievement of any governor since the First Fleet arrived in 1788".
Now, the humble Aussie lamington - which has raised millions of dollars over the past 100 years for scouts, schools and sporting groups - is known throughout the states and territories of Australia, New Zealand, the United States and even South Africa but is a relative rarity in Mother England!
PAUL TULLY: paul@tully.org.au
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