Editing Birthday cake (section)

==Birthday candles and contemporary rites==

[[Image:Birthday candles.jpg|thumb|Modern celebration candles spelling out "Happy birthday"]]
[[File:Child with Snow White cake 1910-1940.jpg|thumb|Child with a birthday cake, {{circa|1930–1940}}]]
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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Marcus |first1=Ivan G. |title=The Jewish Life Cycle: Rites of Passage from Biblical to Modern Times |date=1 March 2012 |publisher=University of Washington Press |isbn=978-0-295-80392-0 |page=120 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sCFk8wNDfuMC |language=en}}</ref> 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.<ref name=Atlantic2017-07-27/><ref name=TheIndependent2017-07-31/><ref name=FoodAndWine2017-07-28/>

===Theories of origin===
{{See also|History of candle making}}
Though the exact origin of the birthday candle ritual is unknown, there are multiple theories which try to explain this tradition.

One theory explaining the tradition of placing candles on birthday cakes is attributed to the early Greeks, who used candles to honor the goddess [[Artemis]]' birth on the sixth day of every lunar month. The link between her oversight of fertility and the birthday tradition of candles on cakes, however, has not been established.<ref>{{cite conference|title=Cake:The Centrepiece of Celebrations|last1=Rusinek|first1=Marietta|date=2012|publisher=Prospect Books|book-title=Celebration: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2011|pages=308–315|location=Oxford}}</ref>

[[Image:Ludwig Knaus - Ein Kinderfest (1868).jpg|thumb|Kinder Fest.]]
In 18th century Germany, the history of candles on cakes can be traced back to Kinderfest, a birthday celebration for children.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://germanhausbarn.com/?page_id=70%7ctitle=Germanhausbarn|title=Keeping the Legacy|work=German Hausbarn|access-date=2015-08-12|archive-date=2016-10-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161005111705/http://germanhausbarn.com/?page_id=70%7ctitle=Germanhausbarn|url-status=dead}}</ref> This tradition also makes use of candles and cakes. German children were taken to an auditorium-like space. There, they were free to celebrate another year in a place where Germans believed that adults protected children from the 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tokenz.com/history-of-birthday.html|title=History of Birthdays|access-date=2013-11-04|archive-date=2020-01-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200130180039/http://www.tokenz.com/history-of-birthday.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>
* In 1746, a large birthday festival was held for Count [[Nicolaus Zinzendorf|Ludwig von Zinzendorf]] at Marienborn near [[Büdingen]]. Andrew Frey described the party in detail and mentions, "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."<ref>{{Cite book|title = A true and authentic account of Andrew Frey. Containing the occasion of his coming among the ... Moravians [&c.]. Transl|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=VIoUAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA15|date = 1753-01-01|language = en|first = Andreas|last = Frey}}</ref>
* [[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."<ref>Shirley Cherkasky: ''Birthday Cakes and Candles'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=8IPfAAAAMAAJ&q=goethe p. 220 books.google]. Goethe's ''Tag- und Jahreshefte'' 1801 http://www.zeno.org/nid/20004859979</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book|title = The Folk-lore Journal|url = https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_pE4KAAAAIAAJ|page = [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_pE4KAAAAIAAJ/page/n431 380]|publisher = Folk-lore Society|date = 1883-01-01|language = en}}</ref>

=== 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.<ref name="TheIndependent2017-07-31" /><ref name="FoodAndWine2017-07-28" /><ref name="FoodResearch" /> 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".<ref name="Atlantic2017-07-27" />