Crescent Cakes of Aradia

Aradia bid her followers: "You shall make cakes of meal, wine, salt, and honey in the shape of a (crescent or horned) moon..." C. G. Leland, Aradia, Gospel of Witches, 1899, page 13.

The recipe is below.

Preheat to 350 degrees. Mix first four ingredients. Add last four ingredients. Combine well, adding water or wine if necessary to make into rollable dough. Cut into crescent shaped cakes and bake until light brown for about 15 minutes.

Burn a white candle during the baking.

Great Diana was queen of all the night. She was the first of all creation. Out of herself, the first darkness, she divided herself, into darkness and light. She was the night and the sun and the moon. The sun, which moved away from Diana, became more masculine. She called him, "Phoebus the shining, my brother." Phoebus Apollo was so proud of his beauty he loved Diana not, and flew from her as the mouse flies from the cat.

Diana came to Apollo stealthily as a white cat and lay with him upon his couch in his chamber. She sported and played with him all night, as the cat plays with the mouse, releasing him at dawn. Diana thus had a daughter by her brother, whom we know as Aradia, or Herodiana. The ancients called her Aritimi.

Aradia was a pure spirit and saw many people were afflicted by their masters. Aradia descended among women and men and taught them witchcraft of her mother. "You shall be the first of the witches known, the first in all the world. When I have departed from this world, you will still meet once in the month, when the moon is full, to adore Diana, my mother, who is queen of all witches and faeries. Whenever you have need of anything, she shall aid you. You shall make cakes to the queen of heaven and feast and revel in her name.

You shall take meal and salt and honey and water and conjure it. You shall make cakes of blessed meal, wine, salt, and honey shaped in the shape of the horned or crescent moon. These shall be Aradia's cakes to honor Diana. Say: 

	I do not bake the bread, nor with it salt, 
	Nor do I cook the honey and the wine;
	I bake the body, blood and spirit,
	Of Diana, beautiful Aradia, 
	In honor of you I will feast
	And drain the goblet deep
	And we will dance and leap
	And sing charming magick in honor 
	Of Great Diana our queen!

	--taken from a personal Wiccan Book of Shadows, collected 1991

Myth's Notes:

I have made the recipe above and shared it with friends a few times at the Chesapeake Pagan Community Gathering when the Gathering fell in August. Of course, August is the traditional time of Diana's feast and Aradia's birthday.

2013 Myths Notes:

Everytime I have made this recipe, I have ended up adjusting the amounts. Mixing it as written leaves the dough too dry to work. Then I "do what my mother taugt me." I would add more liquid, "one splash at a time." In the past, I sometimes added too much and I ended up adding more flour to make the mixture less gooey. It is important to understand that baking is kind of an art form for many cooks. They add this; they adjust that. They expect anyone to whom they give recipies to know how to do the same.

I once tried to make this recipe with just olive oil, no butter. That did not work well. I ended up adding more flour in order to be able to add some butter and get the dough right.

I made this recipe again on Thursday, 8/1/13, and this time I enlisted the assistance of my belove spouse, Thoron, in order to get a more accurate description of the adjustments. I doubled the recipe, so these were the amounts used:

I start out mixing this recipe with a spoon and switch to hand working the dough. I do not roll out the "cakes." My final result is invariably a dough suitable for drop cookies--it's really not the right consistency to roll out and cut into shapes.

In order to shape the cakes into crescents, I take a lump of dough with my right hand and roughly shape it into a crescent shaped lump about two inches long.

I have rearranged the order of the ingredients and I would suggest combining all the dry ingredients, then adding honey, oil, butter, and wine.

Sincere thanks to Thoron for his help in mixing as well as measuring, as the arthritis in my hands has progressed over the years, making it hard to work the dough.

Except for one hard shower during set-up, we had very good weather for the 2013 Chesapeake Pagan Summer Gathering's Harvest of Rebirth.

Nemoralia

The Romans had a festival of Diana held on August 15, some sources state August 13 or the full moon of August. The feast was held in the grove of Lake Nemi and was known as the Nemoralia or Diana's Feast of the Torches. The holiday was considered to be the birthday of the Goddess.

Reportedly Roman women would each bake a cake for the household in Diana's honor, around which white candles were set. A procession of women with hounds on leashes would journey to the town of Aricia. The women would offer thanks in Diana's sacred grove and request the Goddess's continued aid and a harvest free of storms.

Diana's festival in mid-August was a holiday for Roman slaves.

In modern Italy, August 15 is a feast day of the Virgin Mary. The feast is known as the Ferragosto. It celebrates the Virgin Mary's assumption into heaven and her coronation as Queen of Heaven. Whole villages participate or watch the procession in which the image of the Virgin is carried through the streets. --ABC of Aradia

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