In the US, it isn’t very uncommon for one to celebrate the anniversary of birth with a delicious and beautiful cake. Remember that it was the ancient Greeks that started the practice of celebrating with cake. It was usually used when the birthdays of the gods and goddesses were celebrated.

You may have often wondered about the people who first came up with the idea of placing candles on the cake and in this case they are the Greeks. The tradition of candles on top of a cake dates back to the Greek god Artemis.

In the middle ages, the English would conceal symbolic items inside the cake. Each of the item was a prediction for the future of the finder.

You will find that things like the coins, rings, and even thimbles baked into the cake.
And has been an important part of birthday celebrations since and the  birthday cake made its way to Western culture in the mid 19th century.

The cutting method is ridden with certain superstitious belies. If the knife touches the bottom, or when pulling the knife from the cake itself there are pieces of cake stuck to the knife, than the birthday person must kiss the nearest person of the opposite sex.

The trick to blowing out your candles on a birthday cake and making a wish is to blow them all out. It is belief that wish come true if the candles are blown out in one blow and at the same time wisher keeps the secret wish.

For the most part, a birthday cake is embellished with many flowers and colorful balloons in vibrant colors. It is a popular choice of the kids to have their cartoon characters or their favorite ones on the cake.

You will find that there are many people who make their own cake or cook a semi-homemade cake from a package, or birthday cake can cost up to several hundred dollars.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 27th, 2010 at 2:42 pm and is filed under General Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.