"pentagon" news and stories

Ah, brownies, a simple, classic, easy-to-bake dessert -- unless, of course, you are a Pentagon employee, in which case you follow a 26-page recipe to make them. That's right: twenty-six. As CBS News so wittily pointed out, these are people who take their desserts almost as seriously as war.

The recipe -- or rather, the formula -- covers every possible detail, actual or hypothetical. There is no room for creative interpretation here. For example, the size: That would be precisely 3.5 by 2.5 by 5/8ths of an inch per brownie. The ingredients list, too, is very, very specific -- measurements are listed in parts per weight, which is more exacting than, say, cups or tablespoons. Even the moisture content of the finished product is specified (that would be not more than 8.0 percent -- for an "uncoated" brownie).

When NPR's Guy Raz spoke to the Pentagon about their thorough approach to baked goods, Jeremy Whitsitt, speaking for the Department of Defense Combat Feeding Directorate, explained that these brownies are not intended for ordinary circumstances. They are, in fact, heading into war zones. "One thing we like to say is, 'What would happen if you cooked a meal, stored it in a stifling hot warehouse, dropped it out of an airplane, dragged it through the mud, left it out with bugs and vermin, and ate it three years later?'"

The US Army celebrated its 231st birthday with cake. A very, very big cake. The ingredient list included 540 eggs, 100 pounds of flour, 30 pounds of butter, 30 gallons of milk and 30 pounds of sugar and it took 17 chefs about 1 week to create. How did it work? It was constructed from layered individual sheet cakes - 50 of them, to be precise. 35 gallons of icing were used to cover and decorate the cake. The finished product was 8.5 feet long by 3 feet wide and weighed more than 250 pounds. It was served at the Pentagon June 14th to approximately 1,500 people.

Elsewhere in the country, individual divisions had their own celebrations with even more cakes.

Granted, this cake - which is still very impressive - doesn't come close to rivaling the world's largest birthday cake, which was built last year in Las Vegas and used 30,000 half-sheet cakes and 40,000 pounds of frosting. The end result was a cake which weighed in at 65 tons.

There is one more cake close-up after the jump, as well as a picture of the world's largest birthday cake.

 

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