What are some of the unique foods that people have for Birthdays in your country?

16 comments

1. Cake is really the traditional birthday food here. My husband doesn’t like sweet things, so last year I made him a birthday steak pie, because you can still put candles in it and you can still slice it up.

2. In Sweden. Well there is no traditional birthday cake, you eat the cake you like but many opt for Princess cake, most often because it is a no brainer.

   Sandwich cake ( smörgåstårta) is common for bigger parties, it bread with savoury filling, decorated like a cake with ham, tomatoes, shrimp, salmon or what ever the person likes.

3. We don’t have any traditional birthday food. It’s common to have a cake but this could be any cake. Ice cream is not common at all. We do have a tradition when a new kid is born, we eat [beschuit met muisjes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muisjes#Beschuit_met_muisjes).

4. In Denmark the traditions call for a Cakeman or woman, a layered cake(lagkage) and birthday buns, with hot chocolate at the side

5. Any cake will do, the favorite one of the birthday boy. But people seem to develop their own habits. My grandfather was never a fan of cake, he had a birthday bbq.

6. I don’t think it’s necessarily a uniquely Danish cake, but at children’s birthdays, it is common to serve a choux-pastry in the [shape of a kid](https://juliebruun.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/DSC02859-682×1024.jpg), with the first cut being across the neck, “decapitating” the cake. This is accompanied by the children screaming, and is guaranteed to give the parents tinnitus. I have no idea where this tradition comes from.

7. Just cake, but often in this form https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gugelhupf

8. In Germany we don’t have specific food aside from cake as well. One thing we do have however, is a superstition that should never ever under any circumstances ever wish a person Happy Birthday before it is actually the day of their birthday.

9. I don’t think Hungary has traditional birthday food other than cake. There are hungarian cakes (like Dobos cake, Esterházy cake) but it’s up for the birthday girl/boy to decide what cake they would like. Growing up I wanted (and had) Black Forest cake (which is german) for every single one of my birthdays and I know my parents were sick of it haha.

10. In Finland we have traditional birthday cake, which is usually cake with layers, fillings and decorations. Summertime common one with strawberrycake made from fresh strawberries. Layers of cake, in between whipped cream and fresh strawberries, cover with whipped cream and decorate with more strawberries.

    Perhaps more unique one is sandwitch cake that is more for grown ups. Swedish have it as well but i think it is less common elsewhere in the world. Sandwitch cake is made by first covering cake form with clingfilm (so cake is easier to get out), then adding layer of bread, layer of filling (for example mixture of cream cheese and smoked salmon), then another layer of bread, then more filling, then top with bread. Then you cover the top with cling film as well, put on some weight on top and have in fridge over night (this makes it keep together nicely). Next day you flip your cake from form to a serving dish (take clingfilm off naturally) and cover it with savoury frosting (i use mixture of creamcheese and mayo) and decorate with something that works nicely with your filling (for example cold smoked salmon roses and dill if fish cake or meat cold cut decorations if its meat based filling). You can add cherry tomatoes, cucumber swirls, parsley, what ever you feel looks nice. Then you serve it and it’s eaten as slices just like any cake. It tastes like extra flavourfull filled sandwitch.

11. Definitely [“kagemand”](https://conditoriet-roskilde.dk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/20200809_114404-scaled.jpg) among kids, sometimes adults just for the nostalgia of it. Another common thing to do is to distribute [“flødeboller”](https://madensverden.dk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/floedeboller-spangsberg.jpg) to the other students at school when it’s your birthday.

12. Princess cake

    [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_cake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_cake)

    Princess cake is a Swedish cake and the name has appeared on various types of pastries since as early as 1884.

    The first published recipe in a cookbook appears in the “Prinsessornas nya kokbok” (Princess’s new cookbook) from 1948, which was compiled by home economics teacher Jenny Åkerström. Åkerström was a teacher in Stockholm and had among her students three sisters “*Margaretha Princess of Sweden, Norway and Denmark*”, “*Märtha Princess of Sweden and Crown-princess of Norway*” and “*Astrid Queen of Belgium and Princess of Sweden and Norway”*. All daughters of Prince Carl of Sweden and Norway and Princess Ingeborg of Denmark. The princesses where said to have liked the cake a lot, the modern version was original called green cake but over took the name Princess cake from the older versions of the cake.

13. It’s quite normal to make layered cream cake filled and decorated with berries or fruit, either with or without a top layer of marzipan. In children’s birthday’s parties it’s a tradition to serve hot dogs, chocolate cake and jelly. The jelly is often best eaten by sucking it through straws.

    And happy birthday to r/askeurope’s favourite Yankee.

14. Only Birthday cake, really. Anything else is typically just the favourite foods of the birthday boy/girl.

    I don’t like cake so much, so I always ask for cookies from a local shop, and a Chinese takeaway. It’s been the same for at least the last 10 years.

15. I don’t think there’s anything traditional in Slovakia. Most people just have a cake – any kind, really depends on the specific person – like what kind they want. Some people also have other pies or other smaller deserts. I’ve also seen some people do cupcakes or macaroons instead of cake but that’s definitely not super common.

16. Like other UK commenters have said, we have cake, but I would argue that Colin the Caterpillar cake (and its imitators) is quite a unique phenomenon here. It’s a chocolate sponge roll with chocolate buttercream, enrobed in chocolate, decorated with a white chocolate caterpillar face and feet, and topped with colourful chocolate buttons. It usually appears at children’s parties, some adults also have it too- I just bought one for my brother who’s in his late 40s!