The practice of serving cake on birthdays is commonplace in many cultures. In contemporary Western cultures, birthday cakes for children are often topped with candles, secured with special holders or simply pressed down into the outer frosting. In the Anglosphere, the number of candles often corresponds to the age of the individual being celebrated, occasionally with one extra for luck. An increasingly popular alternative is to use candles shaped as the numeral digits of the celebrant's age.
Sparklers may also be used alongside or instead of the traditional wax candles. The cake is usually presented with all the candles lit, at which point it is customary for the guests to sing
Happy Birthday to You in unison, or an equivalent birthday song appropriate to the country. Upon the conclusion of the song, the celebrant is traditionally prompted to blow out the candles and make a wish, which is thought to come true if all the candles are extinguished in a single breath. Another common superstition holds that the wish must be made in silence, not to be shared with anyone else, or else it will not come true. In 18th century Germany, the history of candles on cakes can be traced to Kinderfest, a birthday celebration for children. This tradition also makes use of candles and cakes. German children were taken to an auditorium-like space, free to celebrate another year in a place where Germans believed that adults protected children from evil spirits attempting to steal their souls. In those times there was no tradition of bringing gifts to a birthday; guests would merely bring good wishes for the birthday person. However, if a guest did bring gifts it was considered to be a good sign for the person whose birthday it was. Later, flowers became quite popular as a birthday gift. • In 1746, a large birthday festival was held for Count
Ludwig von Zinzendorf at Marienborn near
Büdingen. Andrew Frey described the party in detail, mentioning that "there was a Cake as large as any Oven could be found to bake it, and Holes made in the Cake according to the Years of the Person's Age, every one having a Candle stuck into it, and one in the Middle." •
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, having spent 24–30 August 1801 in
Gotha as a guest of
Prince August of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, recounts of his 52nd birthday on 28 August: "when it was time for dessert, the prince's entire livery in full regalia entered, led by the majordomo. He carried a generous-size torte with colorful flaming candles – amounting to some fifty candles – that began to melt and threatened to burn down, instead of there being enough room for candles indicating upcoming years, as is the case with children's festivities of this kind." As the excerpt indicates, the tradition at the time was to place one candle on the cake for each year of the individual's life, so that the number of candles on top of the cake would represent the age which some one had reached; sometimes a birthday cake would have some added candles 'indicating upcoming years.' A reference to the tradition of blowing out the candles was documented in Switzerland in 1881. Researchers for the
Folk-Lore Journal recorded various "superstitions" among the Swiss middle class. One statement depicted a birthday cake as having lighted candles which correspond to each year of life. These candles were required to be blown out, individually, by the person who is being celebrated.
Bacteriology In June 2017 researchers at
Clemson University reported that some individuals deposit a large number of bacteria onto the cake frosting when blowing out the candles. They found that on average, the act increased the amount of bacteria by 14 times, but one of the researchers described this as "not a big health concern". ==By culture==