Ingredients for cookes:
Instructions:
To make the icing, combine the confectioners sugar, vanilla, and water, mixing until well blended. Thin the icing with additional drops of water if glaze is too thick.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit. In a large bowl, cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla extract until fluffy and light. Mix the lemon peal, salt, flour, and walnuts in a bowl. In increments, add the flour mixture to the butter and sugar. Mix until well blended. Cover and chill thoroughly for at least two hours.
When the dough is chilled, roll it to a thickness of 1/8 inch, and cut it with a crescent moon cookie cutter.
Place the cookies 1/2 inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes.
After baking, allow the cookies to stand for five minutes. Spread the icing over the tops of cookies while they are still warm.
Note: If you can't find a crescent moon-shaped cookie cutter, you can use a circular cutter and cut a curved line in the middle, then roll the excess dough from the cut-out cookie and repeat.
Myth's Notes
This recipe is from Jamie Wood and Tara Seefeldt, The Wicca Cookbook: Recipes, Ritual, and Lore 2nd edition, 2000, 2010, p. 46.
I've sought to collect different versions of Moon Cookie recipes on the Goddess Aradia and Other Subjects website. This version from The Wicca Cookbook contains ground walnuts and lemon peal, both of which are associated with the Italian Diana and thus with her daughter.
I confess I haven't made them yet. Since the authors have tied them to the sabbat Imbolc, have thought that the icing should possibly be made with bottled spring water.
Among Wiccans, the sabbat Imbolc is also known as Lady Day, Oimelc, Oimealg, Brigid's Day, La Fheile Bride, Festival of the Hearth, Candlemas, Candelora, Feast of Torches, Festival of Lights, Festival of Purification, and in the USA holidays, Groundhog's Day. This Feast of the Waxing Light is often celebrated on February 2 and/or the preceding eve. It is one of four Wiccan fire festivals.
As recipes cannot be copyrighted, I am sharing it on this website, because I have not seen a Moon Cookie or Moon Cake recipe with walnuts in it before.
October 2015