Kids Portal For Parents India Kids Network
Largest Forty Martyrs Cake
Photo: The World’s largest Forty Martyrs Cake has 1m (3.280 ft) in length and 40cm (1.312 ft) in width, setting the world record for the “Largest Forty Martyrs Cake”.
The Guinness World Records world record for the longest onion cake measured 27 m (88 ft 6 in) and was made by Hans-Dieter Slobodkin and members of the Dürrmenz-Bäcker bakery (Germany) in Mühlacker, Germany, on 6 September 2008.
Guinness World Records also recognized the world record for the tallest cake pyramid; it measures 2.79 m (9 ft 2 in) and was achieved by Stratford University (USA), at Potomac Mills Mall in Woodbridge, Virginia, USA, on 11 November 2016.
Gabriela Mateiuc owns in the city of Botosani, at 275 miles (445 km) North of Bucharest, a small family business specialized in making traditional cakes. Her brand, “Cozonacul Domnesc” (“The Royal Cake”) obtained the official recognition as a traditional product from the Ministry of Agriculture of Romania.
“In the villages of Moldova and Bucovina the tradition is preserved today, so for March 9th the housewives make from sponge cake dough forty martyrs cake in the shape of eight, baked in the oven. They moist them with honey and pass them through walnut kernels. Then they bless them to the church and then share them for the soul of the departed”, explains Gabriela Mateiuc the tradition in the villages of Moldavia.”
The forty martyrs cake are “made of 100% natural ingredients” = after a recipe “inherited from ancestors” and enjoys a great success in the capital of Bucharest, invaded in recent years by hypermarket networks, full of imported products.
The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste or the Holy Forty were a group of Roman soldiers in the Legio XII Fulminata (Armed with Lightning) whose martyrdom in 320 for the Christian faith is recounted in traditional martyrologies.
The feast day of the Forty Martyrs falls on March 9, and is intentionally placed that it will fall during Great Lent. There is an intentional play on the number forty being both the number of martyrs and the days in the fast.
In their honor, in Moldova, a region in eastern Romania, 40 figure-eight fake are made, a stylization of the human form. The cake is prepared in shape of 8 and is topped with honey and walnuts. Another custom, pleasing men, is to drink 40 glasses of wine or brandy, to be ruddy and healthy all year.
