40-foot long maple bar invades Mill Creek and is devoured

MILL CREEK —Traditional 10-year anniversaries call for diamonds or crystals but a Mill Creek doughnut shop is dunking the trend and celebrating with a 40-foot-long bacon maple bar cake.

“For doughnut shops that’s the tradition — at least I’m starting it,” joked Del Hernandez, one of the owners of Frost bakery at 15217 Main Street in Mill Creek.

Frost, which serves gourmet doughnuts, cupcakes and other pastries, celebrated a decade in business at the Mill Creek Town Center on Saturday with a super-sized version of one of its bestsellers: Smoky Bacon Maple Bars.

(For East Coasters and Midwesterners, the bakery also serves long johns, bismarcks and doughnut holes, which the shop has dubbed Frostinis.)

“Ten years is a long time for a business,” said Hernandez of the bakery’s longevity. “We wanted to do something big.”

A check of Guinness World Records turned up a 21-foot doughnut, said Hernandez. “We wanted to double that.”

A half-dozen bakery workers began assembling the maple bar cake Thursday with a recipe that called for 300 pounds of dough, 50 pounds of maple icing and 250 pounds of bacon.

“We couldn’t fry it all at once, so we ended up making 80 foot-long cake bars,” Hernandez said.

Laid end-to-end Saturday, they formed a 40-foot-long, 4-inch wide by 5-inch tall long, skinny treat.

Total calories? Don’t ask.

The leftovers were taken to a local food bank.

Hernandez and his two partners started the bakery in 2009 with a Salted Caramel Old Fashioned Doughnut. Since then they’ve added caramel apple fritters, Aztec chocolate doughnuts, a full coffee bar and other goodies.

Why doughnuts?

“We wanted to elevate the doughnut, and make them more gourmet,” he said.

On a personal note, Hernandez wanted to replicate a sweet childhood memory.

“My dad used to take us to the local doughnut shop on weekends,” Hernandez said. “That was our time together.”

Janice Podsada; jpodsada@heraldnet.com; 425-339-3097; Twitter: JanicePods.