Pancake Tuesday: Australian beats record for tallest pancake stack [VIDEO]

MELBOURNE (Australia) — An Australian has marked Shrove Tuesday by breaking the world record for the tallest, unsupported stack of pancakes.

Andy Wrobel, a chef from the south-eastern city of Melbourne, assembled a pile of 60 pancakes measuring 76 cm (29.9 inches), the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports.

The stack collapsed soon after, but was enough to beat the previous record of 74 cm (29.1 inches) set in Croatia in 2008.

Wrobel, who has worked with the Pancake Parlour chain of restaurants for over 25 years, attempted to break the record last year, but his tower toppled after 61 cm (24 inches).

Since then, he told the local Maribyrnong Leader newspaper, he has made over 1,000 pancakes and two stacks a week to train for this year's attempt.

"We thought we'd give it another go and this year we actually did it," he told the ABC. "We had a lot of practices, spent about 50 hours, probably used another quarter of a ton of buckwheat mix, and we finally got to the point where we needed to go." he said.

Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Tuesday, is the first day before Lent, when Christians are encouraged to go without certain luxuries for the the 40 days until Easter.  Traditionally making pancakes was an opportunity to use up leftover eggs, milk and fats.
 

More from GlobalPost: Binche: Home to the world's weirdest Mardi Gras?

More from GlobalPost: Mardi Gras: Five must try traditions