A BRITISH baker spotted a 1.8-kg citric whopper at a fruit and vegetable stall in Wiltshire last month and then made a concoction of baking and cocktail treats.

Tammy Warren, a mother of three, said she spotted the zesty monster, 17 times the normal size, while out with her family at Lackham Farm in Chippenham. “It’s bigger than my baby Sebastian’s head,” said Warren.

She then bought the fruit for £5 (US$6.5) and created a lemon and blueberry cake, lemon cupcakes, lemon cake pops and a lemon drizzle loaf. “In this case, when life gives you a lemon, I’ll be making a couple of lemon drizzle cakes. I’ll have a go at limoncello, candied lemon peel and lots of gin and tonics.”

There was still leftover flesh and zest, from which she made a lemon chicken dinner. “It’s been fun making all these different things with the lemon,” she said. “We’re going to keep the seeds and grow our own.”

The lemon is said to have been grown from a tree that previously created a world-record-sized fruit in the late 1980s. It was grown in the grounds of Wiltshire College & University Center’s Lackham campus. The giant fruit in 1989 was nearly three times bigger than its distant relative, weighing some 4.8 kilograms, with a circumference of 80 centimeters. It held the Guinness World Record title for 14 years until it lost out to a gigantic fruit grown in Israel weighing more than 5 kilograms.

A Wiltshire College & University Center spokesman said: “The college is pleased its super-sized lemons are still as popular and sought after as ever. We have supplied many local people with our special fruit for a number of years and hope those sold at our Lackham Lambing events recently help to produce some delicious bakes and cakes.”

(SD-Agencies)