A WEST Somerset company has helped create the massive centrepiece of a tea party which is likely to make 'feeding the 5,000' seem a minor miracle.

Old Cleeve-based Brook Food Processing Equipment provided a giant oven for the baking of a five-feet diameter Victoria sandwich cake which is set to be shared between at least 25,000 people.

The record-breaking teatime treat has been specially commissioned to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Royal Bath and West Show and will be unveiled at the Shepton Mallet showground on the opening day of the 2013 event on May 29.

Baker Steve Oxford of Oxford's Bakery in Dorset was given the challenge of making the cake of mind-boggling proportions and in addition to finding a tin large enough to accommodate it, he also had to track down an oven in which to bake it.

An engineer was given the task of designing the tin - a stainless steel base unit with forged channels to enable it to be lifted by a forklift truck.

And Brook Food - the UK's largest supplier of new and refurbished bakery equipment - offered the oven and the venue for the giant bake-in, which took place on Wednesday.

Staff at the company were drafted in to help ensure all the ingredients went into the mix - 600 eggs and 50lb each of flour, sugar and butter.

Each of the two layers of the cake needed around two hours in the oven before cooling and sandwiching together with jam and buttercream.

Brook Food operations director Ann Wells said the company had been chosen because of its prime location and because it was able to provide all the facilities and equipment.

"It was a really exciting day, although quite tense at times," said Ann.

"It was certainly a challenge but it turned out brilliantly.

"Being able to provide an oven for this world record attempt has been a pleasure and being involved with a project within our home county gives us so much pride."

The cake was commissioned by Royal Bath and West of England chairman Dr Jane Guise to acknowledge the show's shared roots with the birth of the teatime era and the introduction of the Victoria sandwich - apparently a favourite of the sweet-toothed monarch Victoria.

It will be transported by specialist refrigerated transport to the showground where it will be ceremoniously cut by the Bishop of Bath and Wells the Right Rev Peter Price.