Diamond dessert for businessman's birthday

Buy photos» Carl Weininger with the world’s most expensive dessert. Photo by Jamie Gray 49.011.034.rug.jg1

08 December. Updated: 08 December 11:44

SPLASHING out on a lavish birthday meal every once in a while is always nice - but for one Rugby man only the world's most expensive dessert would do.
And at a whopping £22,000 it was a pudding to be savoured, with four types of fine Belgian chocolate, real gold leaf and champagne jelly just some of the ingredients used to make the eye wateringly expensive treat bought by Carl Weininger.
The hefty price tag however came not from what it was made with but from the decoration - a unique two carat diamond perched on top of a dessert styled like a Faberge egg.
Mr Weininger, a businessman and pilot for the charity Aerobility - which offers disabled people the chance to fly a plane or be flown - bought the record-breaking dessert on a whim for his 60th birthday after seeing it advertised, despite not being a huge fan of chocolate.
Carl said: "I'd split up from a long-term girlfriend and hadn't had a great year so wanted to treat myself. I am an impulsive sort of person and when I heard about the dessert on TV it stuck in my mind.
"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.
"It’s not something you do every day and the response has been overwhelmingly positive."
Carl took the dessert with him to last month's Aviators Ball, an annual fund-raiser for the Aerobility.
He said: "I’m not much of a chocolate lover myself but all the women who tasted it said ‘wow!’."
Carl bought the lavish pudding from the Lindeth Howe Country House Hotel in the Lake District, where it was created by chef Marc Guilbert.
The hotel is now awaiting confirmation the dessert will be entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's most expensive ahead of the current holder, New York's £16,000 Haute Chocolate made at the Serendipity Three restaurant.