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Bundt Pan

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Color image of a Bundt cake pan, May 11, 2005.

Bundt cake pan, May 11, 2005. Photograph by Wikimedia Commons user David Benbennick.

Many Americans can recognize a Bundt pan or have one at home. But few know that this iconic cake pan, created by H. David Dalquist, founder of the Nordic Ware Company, is rooted in Minnesota’s Jewish immigrant history. The design for the ring-shaped mold came from a pan called the Gugelhupf, which was brought to the United States by Jewish immigrants from Europe.

Gugelhupf pans were made of cast iron, and each one weighed more than fifteen pounds. Jewish immigrants traditionally used them to bake heavy cakes similar to pound cakes. In the late 1940s, in Minneapolis, immigrants lamented not being able to find the pans. Three of them were Rose Joshua, Fannie Shanfield, and Mary Abrahamson from the Hadassah Society of Minnesota, a Jewish women’s volunteer organization.

In 1950, the women approached H. David Dalquist to create reproductions of a pan the Abrahamson family brought to the United States from Germany. The group intended to use them to bake cakes to sell for a fundraiser. Hadassah held fundraisers to pay for schools and hospitals in Israel.

Dalquist owned a small company called Northland Aluminum Products (later Nordic Ware) that manufactured die-cast aluminum Scandinavian kitchen items. He was unsure how successful this old world cake pan would be in the United States. However, Dalquist was not in a position to turn down business.

Dalquist created a cast-aluminum version of Abrahamson’s pan and sold it to department stores. The Hadassah women decided that selling pans would be a better fundraiser than selling cakes, so Dalquist gave them the imperfect factory seconds.

The word Bundt comes from the German word Bund, which refers to a gathering of people. Dalquist added the ‘T’ so he could trademark the name and also avoid being linked with the German American Bund, a Nazi organization.

The pan was relatively unknown until 1966, when Ella Rita Helfrich of Houston won second place in the seventeenth Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest. She created a recipe for the Tunnel of Fudge cake, which was made in a Bundt pan with only five ingredients (plus Pillsbury dry frosting mix). The cake formed a soft fudge center as it baked. As the recipe became popular, Pillsbury received more than 200,000 letters from consumers asking where they could find a Bundt pan.

Dalquist’s wife, Dotty, spent hours in the kitchen developing recipes for the Bundt pan. In October of 1969, David pitched the idea for a line of boxed Bundt cake mixes to two Pillsbury executives. Dotty baked the cakes for the pitch, which took place on her husband’s boat on Lake Superior.

The pitch was well received. In 1971, Pillsbury launched the line of Bundt cake mixes that they continued to produce for fifteen years.

In 1972, Pillsbury and Nordic Ware partnered to offer a promotion. They gave consumers the chance to buy a box of cake mix and a Bundt pan together at supermarkets for $1.98. Nordic Ware needed to invest in additional equipment to be able to produce enough pans for the promotion. The investment paid off and helped the business grow.

Dalquist said the Pillsbury promotion helped Nordic Ware grow from a small, family-owned business into a medium-sized regional manufacturer and even, to some extent, a national manufacturer.

Nordic Ware continues to produce Bundt pans in the United States, with more than 90 percent of its products still manufactured in Minneapolis. As of 2016, more than 70 million Bundt pans in 100 unique designs have been sold worldwide.

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Associated Press. “H. David Dalquist, 86, Bundt Pan's Inventor, Dies.” New York Times, January 6, 2005.

Celebrate the Bundt Pan’s 60th Anniversary! Event program. Sholom Community Alliance, January 25, 2007. Private collection of the Hadassah Society (Upper Midwest Region), Minnetonka.

Dalquist, David H. The Nordic Ware Saga: An Entrepreneur’s Legacy. Edited by Linda Dalquist Jeffrey. Minneapolis: Kirk House Publishers, 2006.

Email history interview with Jennifer Dalquist, Director of Sales and Marketing, Nordic Ware; September 28, 2016.

Nelson, Rick. “Taste: Bundt is Back.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 24, 2008.

Pappas, Lou. “A Peek Inside the Pillsbury Test Kitchens: Cooking Along With the Times.” Peninsula Times Tribune, January 27, 1981.

Sholom Community Alliance. Celebrate Bundt Pan’s 60th Anniversary! Program for event at Knollwood Place Apartments, St. Louis Park, MN. January 25, 2007.

Short, Susanna. Bundt Cake Bliss: Delicious Desserts from Midwest Kitchens. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2007.

Related Images

Color image of a Bundt cake pan, May 11, 2005.
Color image of a Bundt cake pan, May 11, 2005.
Color image of a Bundt cake pan, upside down, May 11, 2005.
Color image of a Bundt cake pan, upside down, May 11, 2005.
Color image of a cardboard container for the Nordic Ware Bundt jumbo fluted tube pan made of formed aluminum, ca. 1950–1970. Used by Susan Roth in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.
Color image of a cardboard container for the Nordic Ware Bundt jumbo fluted tube pan made of formed aluminum, ca. 1950–1970. Used by Susan Roth in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.
Color image of a Fluted cake pan, ca. 1900. A forerunner of Dalquist’s Bundt pans.
Color image of a Fluted cake pan, ca. 1900. A forerunner of Dalquist’s Bundt pans.
Black and white photograph of H. David Dalquist, ca. 1955, at a first Chicago Housewares Show—the first in which Nordic Ware participated.
Black and white photograph of H. David Dalquist, ca. 1955, at a first Chicago Housewares Show—the first in which Nordic Ware participated.
Color image of Northland Aluminum Products (Nordic Ware) and sister company Maid of Scandinavia, in St. Louis Park, ca. 1960.
Color image of Northland Aluminum Products (Nordic Ware) and sister company Maid of Scandinavia, in St. Louis Park, ca. 1960.
Black and white photograph of Ella Helfrich and her prize-winning Tunnel of Fudge Bundt cake, 1966. Used with the permission of General Mills, Inc.
Black and white photograph of Ella Helfrich and her prize-winning Tunnel of Fudge Bundt cake, 1966. Used with the permission of General Mills, Inc.
Advertisement for Pillsbury’s Bundt cake mix, ca. 1966. Used with the permission of General Mills, Inc.
Advertisement for Pillsbury’s Bundt cake mix, ca. 1966. Used with the permission of General Mills, Inc.

Turning Point

In 1966, Ella Rita Helfrich’s Tunnel of Fudge cake introduces Bundts to bakers across the United States when it wins second place in a Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest.

Chronology

1950

Women of the Hadassah Society of Minnesota approach H. David Dalquist about creating reproductions of a traditional Gugelhupf pan. The first Bundt pan is produced in the same year.

1966

Ella Rita Helfrich of Houston wins second place in the seventeenth Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest with her Tunnel of Fudge cake recipe.

1969

Dalquist pitches the idea for a line of boxed Bundt cake mixes to two Pillsbury executives.

1971

Pillsbury launches a line of Bundt cake mixes.

1972

Pillsbury and Nordic Ware partner to offer a promotion. They give consumers the chance to buy a box of cake mix and a Bundt pan together at supermarkets for $1.98.

ca. 1986

Pillsbury produces its last Bundt cake mix.