When did people start putting candles on birthday cakes?

Lighting candles for celebrations is ancient, but putting them on a birthday cake is most often linked to 18th-century Germany. A children's birthday festival called Kinderfest is said to have featured a cake ringed with lit candles, one for each year of the child's life plus an extra for the year to come, which burned through the day and were blown out at night with a wish. Some writers trace the idea of candle-lit round cakes even further back, to ancient Greek offerings to the moon goddess Artemis, though the evidence for that is thin. Birthday cakes in their modern sweet form became widespread in the 1800s, as sugar and baking grew cheaper and easier. The candle tradition travelled with German immigrants and became common around the world during the 20th century.