It's A Little-Known Fact That Bundt Cake Was Actually Invented In Minnesota
By Trent Jonas|Published August 01, 2023
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Trent Jonas
Author
Trent Jonas came to Minnesota to attend college - and never left. He's a Twin Cities-based writer with a BA in English and a MFA in creative writing, a Minnesota Master Naturalist, and the proud father of two adult children. With more than a decade of freelance writing experience under his belt, Trent is often out exploring his favorite topics: Minnesota's woods, lakes, and trails. Rhubarb pie is his weakness, so discovering new diners is also a passion.
Consider the humble Bundt cake. Like a donut, this torus-shaped confection is largely defined by its shape and its name. And where did the shape and name come from? Well, I’ll tell ya: The Bundt pan, and thus the cake that emerges from it, was invented in Minnesota and trademarked by the Nordic Ware company in the early 1950s. Want to know more? Read on!
The Bundt cake is so woven into the fabric of American life, few likely remember a time before it existed.
It all started in 1946 when Dotty Dahlquist and her just-returned, World War II-veteran husband, Henry David Dahlquist, started Nordic Ware in the basement of their Minneapolis home.
They mostly sold Scandinavian specialty bakeware to the good Nordic folk of the North Star State.
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In 1950, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a trademark for the word "Bundt" to the Dahlquists and Nordic Ware. The word derives from the German bundkuchen, which means "cake for a gathering." Bund, itself, means "a gathering." Dahlquist added a "t" to the end to make the word trademark-able.
The pan didn't catch on at first, but later in the 1950s, a Bundt cake won a national contest. And in the decades since, Nordic Ware has sold more than 75 million Bundt pans.
Bundt cakes are popular because of the decorative shapes in which they can be made. Moreover, the pans allow for a more even distribution of heat, so the cake develops a bit of a crust on the outside, while remaining soft and moist on the inside - all without burning.
Check out Nordic Ware's tips on how to ensure that your Bundt cakes come out perfectly every time:
In recent years, Bundt cakes have become so popular that a franchise chain devoted solely to this beloved cake, Nothing Bundt Cakes, has spread from a home kitchen in Las Vegas to stores all over the country. Several shops are even located in Minnesota.
Bundts, however, have also been more than cakes. Here are seven decades of Bundts in less than a minute showing some other iterations:
Nordic Ware’s world headquarters is now located in St. Louis Park, Minnesota – a Minneapolis suburb – and the company is still owned by the Dahlquist family. Like the company, over the years, the classic Bundt shape has evolved. It’s still available, of course, but now you can buy all sorts of variations – large and small, different shapes and textures – and customize your Bundt to suit your own tastes and needs.
Do you have a favorite kind of Bundt cake? Let us know in the comments! (…And you’re welcome!)
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