Quite near to where I grew up in Leicester in the 1970s was a wonderful patisserie, Konditorei Macopa, run by a German man, Siegfried Berndt. The shop on Clarendon Park Road was pretty wee, but it had the most amazing selection of continental pastries and chocolates and wonderful cakes, all of which Mr Berndt made on the premises. It seemed such an exotic shop to have in our area, and it was a real treat to have one of his apricot Danish pastries or croissants for breakfast at the weekend, along with coffee made from the unroasted coffee beans he used to sell, which my Mum then used to roast in our oven. I loved that smell! His shop was also the first time I had seen fresh yeast, which you could buy in a little paper envelope with a cellophane front. His window display was a wonder to behold, with beautiful slices of continental style cakes and pastries and handmade chocolates. The shop always smelled wonderful too—Mr Berndt roasted coffee beans on the premises, so along with the bready and cakey and chocolatey aromas, it was almost sensory overload to go in there.
A big egg. Bariloche, Argentina, April 2015. Photo by BBC.
Anyhow, I was reminded of this wonderful shop today when I saw an article about the world record breaking chocolate easter egg just made in Argentina. This handmade behemoth stands 6.50 m tall and used 8,000 kg of chocolate. Back in 1982, Mr Berndt became the world record holder for the heaviest chocolate easter egg – on 7 April 1982 he completed one that weighed 3,430 kg (7,561 lbs, 13 1/2 oz), and stood 3.05 m (10 feet) high. He appeared on Blue Peter with his creation, and soon after that 1 lb bags of smashed-up bits of easter egg were on sale in his shop: apparently it took until July to sell them all (only half of the eggsworth – he gave the rest to charity). I have to admit I succumbed—it’s not every day you can say you’ve eaten a piece of world record breaking easter egg. I think the record stood for a few years, but then was overtaken by greater productions. The new Argentinian record holder is over twice the height and weight of the Macopa one.
I wondered what happened to the shop, and a quick spot of googling showed that it closed some time in the late 1990s. However, in March last year an artisan bakery opened up in the premises: The Tiny Bakery. Well named, indeed!
February 2016 update: Thanks to a comment from a lady, June, who used to work at Macopa, I’ve corrected Mr Berndt’s nationality to German. He is wrongly described as Swiss in the news reports I’ve seen. Do have a read of June’s comment, below – it’s a fascinating glimpse into the life of the patisserie and the travails of the easter egg. Thanks, June!
What a lovely story! I live in Clarendon Park and write a blog about the area but I never knew about the record breaking chocolate egg. I might suggest to the folk in The Tiny Bakery that they have go at beating the current record!
Hi Ruth! Glad you enjoyed the post. Your blog is fantastic! I’ve only had the briefest of looks (going back for more after this), but reading it I am filled with nostalgia – I moved to the area in 1967 with my family and pretty much left in 1982 when I went off to university. My parents moved away in 1987 and I have only been back a couple of times since, but I still have the fondest memories of Clarendon Park.
The easter egg was such a disappointment when I tried it – yucky, soapy cooking chocolate. I think I had rather naively hoped that given all Mr Berndt’s cakes used the finest Belgian chocolate, that his egg would too … And I wonder whether the Blue Peter feature was partly aided by the fact that the producer, Biddy Baxter, was a Leicester gal? She was perhaps the most famous old girl of my school.
How nice to read about Macopa, I was lucky enough to work as Pastry Chef there for a few years and learnt a lot from the master craft man, but he was German his lovely wife was swiss.
At first he couldn’t get the egg out of the Macopa gates, the fire brigade was required. The Egg had to be transported on a truck all the way to the Blue peter building and then began to melt under the lights, he had to go up a ladder and patch it while being filmed.
He was a very hard working man, some times he would sleep on the stairs to make sure the oven didn’t go out.My favourite memory is sitting on the stool heavily pregnant, next to the brick oven eating an Apricot danish with fresh cream on, yum. June
Hello June, and thanks so much for getting in touch – it’s fascinating to hear about your time at Macopa, lucky you! Thanks for the info about Mr Berndt’s nationality: I’ve corrected the piece. And the apricot Danish pastries were my absolute favourite. You don’t have the recipe, by any chance …?!
Hi, I’m Lindsay Abraham, co owner of The Tiny Bakery with Alwyn Morris. The grandchildren of Mr Macopa have been in to say hi to us at The Tiny Bakery and told us that he could get into the egg! I’d love to know more about the history of the place. Many of our customers were also Macopa customers and have fond memories of him.
Point of interest, his wife, Maria, (MAria’s COntinental PAttiserie) is Austrian, not Swiss.