The history of birthday cakes.

© ALICE BAKES

Recently I turned a year older and it inspired this blog post. Every year my mom would bake a cake for every member of our family on our respective birthday. It’s another one of our familial baking tradition. And it made me wonder; When did we start using cakes to celebrate someone’s birthday ?

The birthday cake is a worldwide tradition. Although there is no universal way of baking a birthday cake, some of them shared some similarities; the lit candle on top, the birthday wishes written with icing and it is cut while loves one are singing ‘Happy birthday’.   

But how it it all start ?

Well, it stared in the great ancient Greece. They would make round cheesecake for the goddess of the moon and put candles on it to make it glow like the moon. At the time, it was not use to celebrate anyone’s birthday but as a prayer. However it is considered to be the birth of the the flaming cake. Years later, in the 1400’s Germany started throwing birthday parties for children. Eventually when German immigrated to America, they brought the tradition with them. Back in the day, the cakes were much more simple and flatter. Whereas nowadays, the birthday cake that we all know is colorful and layered.   

If you want to learn more about the history of birthday cakes click here to watch a video by Tasty.