Walk through downtown's Centennial Olympic Park on Saturday and you will encounter:

» Thirty-eight griddles.

» 136 gallons of maple syrup

» 10,000 cans of CO2-powered pancake batter, ready to blast.

» 20,000 hungry people.

Actually Batter Blaster, makers of perhaps the only pancakes that come in a pressurized can (Are there other pancakes that come in a can?) are hoping for the hungry customers. They plan to dish out 70,000 free pancakes. Somebody needs to eat them.

This would earn Batter Blaster not only a place in the Guinness World Records but immortality in the world of jet-propelled breakfast food.

"Since we were the kind of company that was nuts enough to make batter in a can, we thought we could break the Guinness record, and, looking at state of the economy, feed the city a free breakfast," said Sean O'Connor, founder and CEO of the San Francisco-based company.

Which brings up the question: Why would you put pancakes in a can? O'Connor, a one-time restaurateur, says the idea grew during downtime at his eatery, which opened, unfortunately, just as the dot.com boom ended. Founded in 2007, the company sold 3 million cans in its first year, he said, which is still tiny, compared with frozen waffle sales, a market he'd like to cut in on.

Folks on treehugger.com don't like the idea of Batter Blaster's wasteful packaging, but Elisabeth Omilami, of Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless, is a convert. Batter Blaster will be collecting for Omilami's nonprofit organization on Saturday, and she knows plenty of hungry people who will be happy to have a meal. "Our folks can eat a lot of pancakes," she said.

To beat the unofficial current record, held by a Lion's Club in Lubbock, Texas, Batter Blaster (which comes in recyclable cans) must serve more than 66,549 5-inch pancakes within eight hours, O'Connor said. He said his folks are prepared to serve 90,000, if they have enough hungry customers.

But Omilami isn't cooking. "I burn pancakes."

For information: www.centennialpark.com

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