Jalisco-based candy-maker Dulces de la Rosa made history yesterday by preparing an 8.3-tonne peanut marzipan.

That’s a lot of marzipan: for comparison, the portions of marzipan widely sold in Mexico are just 28 grams.

Peanut marzipan, known simply as mazapán, is a typical sweet emblematic of Mexican culture and De la Rosa is almost as emblematic. The company has been known for its mazapán for 75 years.

The firm decided to celebrate its 75th anniversary by shooting for a Guinness World Record, which it did by successfully delivering the massive mazapán yesterday, to the delight of many with a sweet tooth.

Preparations began 11 days before and it took close to 100 people more than three hours to make the marzipan.

The result was an 8,296.1-kilogram peanut marzipan sweet, a record certified by Guinness World Records representative Carlos Tapia.

Mazapán is known to be a fragile sweet: 28-gram packages often crumble apart if not opened with care. So the integrity of the record-beating product was a major concern for the confectioners because it had to remain in one piece while it was labeled, weighed and measured.

Yesterday’s ceremony and celebration gave De la Rosa the opportunity to announce its plans for the future, which entail the launch of 14 new products, including a special variety of chocolate bar.

The marzipan was prepared at the Plaza Fundadores park in downtown Guadalajara, where starting today the public can try a sample. De la Rosa will be giving away its monster mazapán in chunks of 100 grams.

Source: Milenio (sp), El Occidental  (sp)