World record for Londoners' egg-streme cooking

Oli and Phoenix's scotch egg weighed 7.81kg (17.2lb) once cooked

What weighs about 8kg (17.6lb) and has a circumference of 79.5cm (31.3in)?

Not a watermelon, nor an enormous bowling ball - but the world's largest scotch egg.

You may recognise these food content creators, Oliver Paterson and Phoenix Ross - or perhaps more familiarly, ElBurritoMonster and Shef_Phoenix as they are known online.

They joined forces on 17 June, to smash the record of 6.2kg (13.7lb) that had stood for about 17 years by the speciality egg producer Clarence Court.

"It felt great that we'd got it," 27-year-old Phoenix told me.

But how do you get around to making the world's largest scotch egg?

Egg-cellent engineering

For context, Phoenix, who's from Notting Hill, only met fellow Londoner, 28-year-old Oli, at an event in April.

"We are very similar personality-wise," said Phoenix. "I was like, 'this is definitely my guy'."

He added that Guinness World Records had recently been in touch about a world record attempt after seeing him make a giant creme egg online.

After meeting Oli, he said he knew he was the person he wanted to do the record attempt with and they proposed making a scotch egg with an ostrich egg - something Oli had done about three and a half years ago.

They had considered burritos, but that record was "unbeatable" at 2.4km (1.49miles) or a giant sausage roll, but the record of 111m (364ft) was too long, as they wanted to do it in Oli's garden.

So they decided on a scotch egg and at Oli's place in Enfield, where they began their first attempt on 10 June.

Which failed - the egg collapsed before they could add it to the fryer.

They both admitted that was due to little planning and that they had just "hoped for the best".

Fast forward a week later and they achieved their goal thanks to a lot more preparation: the egg was hard boiled, wrapped in sausage meat then covered in bread crumbs and deep fried.

"We were pretty confident - 90% certain - we were going to pull it off this time," said Oli.

The foody content creators met at an event in April and said they kicked it off immediately

Guinness World Records said the scotch egg had to be made in the exact same way as the regular-sized version to qualify for the record and the yolk had to be fully intact when cut open.

Oli said: "Ostrich eggs are the strongest of all the eggs. Any person up to 115kg (253.5lb) can stand on one and the shell won't break.

"So we used a hammer to crack it and spent about five minutes peeling it."

He laughed that he needed a sword to cut the scotch egg once cooked, as it was much larger than any of his kitchen knives, to prove the egg was intact.

Guinness World Record adjudicator Emma Salt measured the width of the egg at 11.5cm (4.5in) and the thickness of the meat as 6cm (2.4in) used to create the egg-straordinarily large snack.

Phoenix said: "I felt a little anxiety before it was open – a slight bit of tension – as the egg had to be intact. As soon as we sliced it open, we knew at that moment we had got it.

"After we failed the first time, there was no doubt in my mind that we had to get it the second time."

Oli added: "The moment of celebration, that feeling of elation for me, was pulling it out the fryer."

The egg's width was 11.5cm (4.5in) and the thickness of the meat was 6cm (2.4in)

Phoenix's first thought after they achieved the Guinness World Record was: "Cool, we've done it, it was a bit of a weight off my chest."

"All the food has to get eaten, to avoid food waste," Oli added. "After taking a bite ourselves, we then turned the scotch egg into burritos."

"We made 19 at about 1,600 calories per burrito," which made more content for their feeds.

They told me the world record attempt was very conveniently timed, and have since had lots of messages of others wanting to beat their record, but they informed me ostrich egg season is over - so this win should be theirs for at least a year.