Photo Coverage: Ferrara Makes Worlds Largest Cannoli - 12 Feet Long and 348 pounds

Hail To The Chef! Ernest Lepore, co-owner and Executive Chef of Little Italy's world famous Ferrara Café & Bakery, predicted he would create the World's Largest Cannolo and this past Saturday, September 20, 2014, he did it! Weighing in at a record 348 pounds and measuring 12 feet in length, the "Ferrara IL GRANDE CANNOLO was introduced at 3 PM in front of a crowd of thousands of astounded onlookers attending the final weekend of NYC's 88th Annual Feast of San Gennaro.

Hours earlier, at around 12 noon, a large 24' rented Penske Truck slowly turned onto Grand Street from Mott and parked a few yards from Ferrara's café. At the wheel was Ernest Lepore himself; he had driven the truck containing three 12 foot shells which he had prepared the night before in his factory/warehouse in New Jersey. His truck was too high to enter the Holland Tunnel, which connects New Jersey and lower Manhattan. Undaunted he turned around and drove into Staten Island over the Outerbridge Crossing, then proceeded across Staten Island, crossed the Verrazano Bridge into Brooklyn and then crossed the Manhattan Bridge into lower Manhattan.

"I planned on making three 12 foot shells, hoping that at least one would survive the slow, but bumpy trip," says Ernest. "And I was lucky I did because two of them did crack during the trip."

Once the truck was parked and opened, a team of Ferrara employees were on hand to unload the surviving shell, packed in a secure box, and carefully moved it on a long specially constructed table on wheels to the front of the Feast's FIAT Performance Stage, diagonally across from his café.

Five hundred folding chairs were then placed facing the stage so that the crowd, which was already gathering for the unveiling ceremony, could watch the final steps in the completion process - the filling of the shell with previously prepared cannoli cream. Ernest had spent weeks preparing for this moment and he was determined to make it succeed.

As Ernest and his bakers were positioning and preparing the shell for the final step - drilling holes across the length of the shell where the bakers would later start to inject the cream - the growing crowd was being entertained by singers Cristina Fontanelli, Johnny Mandolin and Gianni Russo, who was also emceeing the ceremony.

About 2 PM, as a crowd of 3,000 - 4,000 people gathered on Grand Street between Mott and Mulberry, creating a wall of people who would be witnesses to the successful unveiling of the "Ferrara IL Grande Cannolo," Ernest and two other bakers began filling the cannoli shell by injecting the cream with pastry bags through the holes on top.

In order to keep count of the pounds of cream being inserted into the 40-pound, 12 foot cannoli shell, Russo announced the updated total every time another 30 pounds of cream had been inserted. Just before 3 PM, the shell was finally filled and in dramatic fashion Russo stepped up to the microphone and announced over the loudspeaker: "A new world record has been set! 308 pounds of cannoli cream have been injected into the 40 pound shell creating a 348 pound cannolo - a new world record!"

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The huge crowd reacted to the announcement with a loud roar and Ernest and his bakers raised their arms in victory! They were the new champions. As the announcement was made over the Feast's loudspeaker system throughout the 11 blocks of the Feast, the noise of the crowds in the street continued for at least ten minutes.

Over the next 90-minutes, the Ferrara bakers broke off small 1 ½ ounce pieces of the "Ferrara IL Grande Cannolo" and gave them to the crowd which had by now approached the front of the stage, cameras in hand, capturing this moment on film and video. And everyone got a piece of the record-breaking cannolo.

"We gave away more than 5,200 cannoli -- 3,733 small pieces of the giant cannolo and another 1,500 of our small cannoli to others in the large crowd," says Ernest. "At the end of of the day it was a tiring but exhilarating experience."

What happens next? "I've already started thinking about next year's Feast of San Gennaro. I don't know yet what we will do, but I can assure you that whatever it is, it will be big, real big!"

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