By David Harry

Staff Writer

Call it a giant case of “that’s the way the cookie crumbles.” 

Amy Bouchard’s quest to make and serve the world’s largest whoopie pie at the Maine Mall last Saturday had mixed results, but the Wicked Whoopies owner was philosophical.

“I’m bummed the top broke,” she said, “but it is like baking at home sometimes. Something that is delicious does not always look good.”

Bouchard and a handful of employees tried to set a world record while also raising money to ship her whoopie pies to Maine soldiers. 

Ultimately, the top layer of devil’s food cake crushed more than 500 pounds of filling made of confectioner’s sugar, vanilla, vegetable shortening and other ingredients. 

But taste apparently won out over looks: Hundreds of spectators waited two hours to taste the filling, served with a backup cake.

Bouchard she originally planned to make a 500-pound whoopie pie to beat the world record 225-pound version made in Pennsylvania last year. 

“Then it was 600 pounds, then it was 700 pounds,” she said. 

The larger it got, the more the project challenged Wicked Whoopies baker Randy Smith.

Smith said the giant pie needed more than extra ingredients. Special 5-foot steel baking pans were made to support the cake and the bottom piece of cake was thicker in the center to stand up to the crush of filling.

The cake and filling were shipped from Wicked Whoopie’s bakery in Gardiner. Cake pieces were on boards bolted to shipping pallets to keep the load from shifting, Smith said. 

The filling basked in sunshine of the mall’s center court as Bouchard shaped and reshaped the pie. 

Before the giant pie was assembled, employees and friends distributed about 500 smaller pies and 400 promotional T-shirts for contributions to pay for shipping whoopie pies to Maine servicemen and women on duty overseas, Bouchard said.

A friendly competition between Maine and Pennsylvania legislators has developed since January over which state is the original home of the snack.

Last week, Maine legislators approved a bill naming the whoopie pie the official state treat. 

The bill was co-sponsored by Reps. Emily Cain (D-Orono), and Kenneth Fredette (R-Newport), who arrived around 11:15 a.m. to help lift the top cake onto the filling.

The result was messy as crevices creased the top cake and filling oozed from the sides.

“I was feeling pretty good until I realized how soft the filling was getting,” Bouchard said.