The housewives of 1962 are weeping.

January 6, 2005 2:38 PM

H. David Dalquist, the inventor of the Bundt pan, has died. Did he even dream of the extensive potential uses of his product? About the logical extension of his invention?
posted by mudpuppie (26 comments total)

Hmm. I thought the inventor would have been named "Bundt." The etymology dictionary did not have an origin of the word...

My mom used to make a very rich, moist chocolate bundt cake which she would drizzle with rum and melted dark chocolate.
posted by Specklet at 3:01 PM on January 6, 2005

I hear he's going to be buried in a round coffin with a hole in the middle.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:05 PM on January 6, 2005

Specklet - if you read the actual obit (the first link) then you'd see that

[...] called the pans "bund pans" because "bund" is German for a gathering of people. Mr. Dalquist added a "t" to the end of "bund" and trademarked the name

A non-reg-req'd-link-to-the-obit is here
posted by stevil at 3:28 PM on January 6, 2005

Seems hard to believe that he was alive in my lifetime. I guess I always thought that this was one of those kitchen gadgets that was around forever.
posted by fixedgear at 3:31 PM on January 6, 2005

Thanks for the non-reg-req link and and the origin, stevil.
posted by Specklet at 3:35 PM on January 6, 2005

...extensive potential uses of his product?

Yea, for various bundt cakes, sure. I thought I was getting a link to "extensive potential ALTERNATIVE uses"... which are always fun. Oh well.
posted by Witty at 3:38 PM on January 6, 2005

H. David Dalquist
Inventor of the Bundt pan
Hot damn that's good cake.
posted by eamondaly at 3:38 PM on January 6, 2005

He's now happily eating cake with the angels. Thanks, David.
posted by alms at 4:17 PM on January 6, 2005

Ha! Just got my first Bundt pan for Christmas. I've been wanting one ever since I came across an intriguing recipe for Monkey bread.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:24 PM on January 6, 2005

I thought I was getting a link to "extensive potential ALTERNATIVE uses"... which are always fun. Oh well.

You don't think decorative Elizabethan collars sound fun? (The article linked with "pan" has DIY instructions, if it does.)
posted by PY at 5:34 PM on January 6, 2005

What about VAN DE GRAAFF machines?

A Bundt pan below, and a steel mixing bowl above, and you're well on your way to exceeding 300,000 volts potential with respect to Ground!
posted by billb at 5:36 PM on January 6, 2005

According to the great chef Berri Yoga, it's an unwritten rule in kitchen arguments:
"Never strike with two bundts."



If you look at that bundt pan upside down, concave becomes convex, and you get a Klein pan.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 6:06 PM on January 6, 2005

The Klein cake is all icing.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 6:11 PM on January 6, 2005

I'm missing the Klein cake joke. But oh, missing jokes sometimes takes you to incredible places, like the number one google hit for "klein cake".
posted by mudpuppie at 6:18 PM on January 6, 2005

It was a reference to a Klein bottle, which has only one surface, and zero volume.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 6:25 PM on January 6, 2005

Thank you for hurting my mind.
posted by mudpuppie at 6:30 PM on January 6, 2005

Did he even dream of the extensive potential uses of his product? About the logical extension of his invention?

.

who did what now?
posted by wfrgms at 7:27 PM on January 6, 2005

Anyone else think the art director was out to lunch when they decided on logotype for cooks.com?

DIGRESSION!
posted by Jack Karaoke at 10:30 PM on January 6, 2005

I really enjoyed this post. Thank you, mudpuppie.
posted by Dr. Wu at 11:08 PM on January 6, 2005

[This is good] bundt cake.

But a Klein cake? Would eating a Klein cake make you more or less full? A slice of Klein cake would be a Möbius strip, no? Ooo, Klein hats. It's weird/cool to me that that's Clifford Stoll behind the Klein bottle project.
posted by loquacious at 2:59 AM on January 7, 2005

I once made a half-assed timpano in a bundt pan. Does that count as an alternative use?
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:45 AM on January 7, 2005

Those who assumed this was an age-old design are correct - as the Post article mentions "They had old ceramic cake pans of somewhat similar designs but wanted an aluminum pan".

Doesn't anyone else find it amusing that the cake recipe that contributed to the pan's popularity was the Tunnel of Fudge?
posted by kcds at 7:18 AM on January 7, 2005

JUST TO CLARIFY: This man did not invent the bundt cake, the bundt pan, or the word bundt. The cake and the pan were already in use. All he did was trademark the word. The word exists in cookbooks as far back as 1903.
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:46 AM on January 7, 2005

Huh. More about the history of the Bundt pan.

Kugelhupfs came first,
Heavy Austrian cakes rule
And light souffles fall.
posted by eamondaly at 7:56 AM on January 7, 2005

Would you like some MetaFiltert® coffee with your Bundt cake?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 2:57 PM on January 7, 2005

More about it:

The post linked below reprints information gathered by a colleague from the Settlement Cook Book. It shows the term and the cake were familiar at least as early as 1912. Note specifically the description of the pan: "Bundt form (a heavy round fluted pan with tube in center)."

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0106E&L=ads-l&P=R126

The 1903 edition of the same cookbook also included "bundt kuchen," which means something like "band cake," though a band cake is a different item.

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0107D&L=ads-l&P=R1946

The only thing Mr. Dalquist gets credit for, I'm afraid, is trademarking a term that had already existed for 63 years. The trademark info can be seen here: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0501A&L=ads-l&P=R8386 .
posted by Mo Nickels at 6:29 PM on January 11, 2005