Birthday cake
The birthday cake is the mid-19th century, an integral part of children's birthday parties in Western culture.
The children's birthday as a celebration in Germany goes back to the so-called children profiteroles, which were established at the beginning of the 18th century, the aristocracy and the upper middle class. Children should be brought up with these celebrations befitting behavior, forms of communication and representation duties to guests. In the 19th century the bourgeoisie took over the birthday celebrations. Since about the mid-19th century, the birthday cake is an integral part of festive birthday table. In rural areas, the custom existed around 1800. For the nationwide dissemination ensured maid who went to work from the countryside to the cities and then usual birthday cake, the cupcakes, in a sense took to their new locations.
The tradition of birthday candles was parallel to the cake probably for the reason of giving children the importance of a new year of life experienced since the birth unlike other intrusive experiences such as the loss of deciduous teeth, or enrollment not sensually tactile, tangible things, or objects is connected. Already in 1775 it said in a fictional story in the magazine, the friend of children, which was published by Christian Felix Weisse, the founder of German children 's literature:
The door opened and the shine of the lights announced a small eye containers, which his brothers accompanied him from the mom, in a cake with nine lights, sullied by the number of his years, handed over.
Today is the birthday cake is most commonly used as a bowl, shape and pot pie or a pie in the whole of Germany. In Thuringia, he is also known as Aschkuchen and southern Germany as a Bundt cake. Often it is just a normal cake ( for example strawberry cake ), the performances may also be other festivals, but there are also specially decorated birthday cakes, which have around a candle in the middle. Especially in the Anglo-American culture, there lavishly trimmed cake, decorated example with the name of the child or with as many candles as the birthday child is years old. The burning candles are blown out after presentation of the birthday cake on the birthday child from this as possible at once. This is to bring good luck. Such cakes are not widely used in Germany, but are often viewed as "typical birthday cake ." A birthday cake is not necessarily available everywhere: Especially for larger parties also smaller cakes such as muffins, or nothing sweet is served instead of the big cake.