Gem of a dessert sold for cool £22,000

Lindeth Howe Country House Hotel in Windermere, Cumbria, could only be crowned the title-holder if a customer was to buy the £22,000 pudding.

Carl Weininger, of Rugby in Warwickshire, splashed out on the wildly extravagant chocolate pudding as a treat for his 60th birthday and the hotel’s culinary team is now waiting for confirmation that the dessert will take its place in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Styled like a Fabergé Easter egg, the chocolate pudding is believed to have broken all previous records because of its pricey list of ingredients which includes gold, champagne caviar and a two-carat diamond.

Layered with champagne jelly and a light biscuit joconde, the creation is finished with bitter dark chocolate and glazed with edible gold leaf.

The centrepiece of the dessert was a two carat diamond that had been supplied by Wave Jewellery chain.

Mr Weininger admitted he was not much of a chocolate-lover but said hearing about the dessert on television had convinced him to be impulsive.

“Buying the dessert has been a real boost for my morale and it’s helped to promote the charity Aerobility which gives disabled adults like me and children the opportunity to take to the skies and fly,” he said. “It’s not something you do every day and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

“I gave people a little taste of the dessert at our charity Aviators Ball this weekend.

“I’m not much of a chocolate lover myself but all the women who tasted it said ‘Wow!’,” added Mr Weininger.

Costing £22,000 per egg, the dessert easily cracked the previous world record – which was held by New York’s Serendipity Restaurant with a pudding priced at £12,000.