the Buddha is said to have fed 500 disciples using just a few cakes.
It's actually 500 people with water to drink from one "jar" which he purchases, and this "Jar" may be in reference to a large container that could easily satisfy 500 people, like a 50-100 gallon vat or so, of a similar size of the wine jars in Jesus's wine story. "24 pennies" for a little jar of water would be the most expensive jar of water of all time, that better be a diamond plated jar, the word for "penny" I believe is a translation for a coin of large value. And I don't believe it was Buddha himself who did this but his incarnation as a young disciple, the "Pupil of the Gildmaster", a different character altogether regardless if the story is about his soul in a previous form. And we have no way of knowing which stories come from 400 BCE or the much later ones that go up to even the 1890s (AD). This could have for all intents and purposes been a copy of the Christian story instead, assuming that the "jar" was just a very expensive, tiny jar he bought. And the story doesn't seem to relate it as anything miraculous but simply doing him a favor. The context is clearly just about him doing them all a big favor.
http://archive.org/stream/jatakatales00fran/jatakatales00fran_djvu.txt
14 THE LITTLE GILDMASTER
Later, one rainy and windy day, the wind blew down
a quantity of rotten branches and boughs and leaves in
the king's pleasaunce, and the gardener did not see how
to clear them away. Then up came the young man with
an offer to remove the lot, if the wood and leaves might
be his. The gardener closed with the offer on the spot.
Then this apt pupil of Gildmaster Little repaired to the
children's playground and in a very little while had got
them by bribes of molasses to collect every stick and leaf
in the place into a heap at the entrance to the pleasaunce.
Just then the king's potter was on the look out for fuel to
fire bowls for the palace, and coming on this heap, took
the lot off his hands. The sale of his wood brought in
sixteen pennies to this pupil of Gildmaster Little, as well
as five bowls and other vessels. Having now twenty-four
pennies in all, a plan occurred to him. He went to the
vicinity of the city-gate with a jar full of water and supplied
500 mowers with water to drink. Said they, " You've done
us a good turn, friend. What can we do for you ? " " Oh,
I'll tell you when I want your aid," said he ; and as he went
about, he struck up an intimacy with a land-trader and a
sea-trader. Said the former to him, " To-morrow there will
come to town a horse-dealer with 500 horses to sell." On
hearing this piece of news, he said to the mowers, " I want
each of you to-day to give me a bundle of grass and not to
sell your own grass till mine is sold." " Certainly," said they,
and delivered the 500 bundles of grass at his house. Unable
to get grass for his horses elsewhere, the dealer purchased
our friend's grass for a thousand pieces. Only a few days
later his sea-trading friend brought him news of the arrival
of a large ship in port ; and another plan struck him. He
hired for eight pence a well appointed carriage which plied
for hire by the hour, and went in great style down to the