Christmas cracker tradition of wearing festive hats is believed to date back to Roman times and the Saturnalia celebrations, which also involved decorative headgear. Christmas crackers are also associated with Knut's parties, held in Sweden at the end of the Christmas season. The "Oxford English Dictionary" records the use of "cracker bonbons" and the pulling of "crackers" from 1847. Tradition tells of how Tom Smith of London invented crackers in 1847. He created the crackers as a development of his bon-bon sweets, which he sold in a twist of paper (the origins of the traditional sweet-wrapper). As sales of bon-bons slumped, Smith
Battenberg cake Hauke (no "von", as it had been a Russian title) in 1852, on behalf of her marriage to Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine; then first Countess, afterwards Princess of Battenberg, known in Britain since 1917 as Mountbatten. According to "The Oxford Companion to Food", the name "Battenberg cake" first appeared in print in 1903. However, a "Battenburg cake" appeared in: Frederick Vine, "Saleable Shop Goods for Counter-Tray and Window …" (London, England: Office of the Baker and Confectioner, 1898). In the United States, there is a related confection called a checkerboard cake, named because as with a Battenberg