 The tradition of the dole continues to the present , and every Easter Monday tea , cheese and bread are given to local widows and pensioners through the windows of Biddenden 's former workhouse . All those eligible for the annual dole are given a Biddenden cake , and they are sold as souvenirs to visitors . The cakes are baked so hard as to be inedible , to allow better preservation as souvenirs ; they are baked in large batches every few years and kept until the stock runs out . Historically , the loaves used were of the archaic <unk> loaf size , but this particular part of the tradition ended when Biddenden 's last bakery closed in the 1990s . 
