Bundt pan

The Minnesota Historical Society's MNopedia explains that the design for the ring-shaped mold came from an older European pan called the Gugelhupf. Those pans were made of cast iron and weighed well over 15 pounds. In 1950, members of the Minneapolis chapter of Hadassah asked H. David Dalquist, who ran Northland Aluminum Products, to reproduce the pan, and he produced a lighter cast-aluminum version.

According to the same article, the pan was brought to the United States by Jewish immigrants from Europe and is linked to Minnesota's Jewish immigrant community. Its fame rose later with a 1966 recipe called Tunnel of Fudge, a cake whose ring shape let it form a soft fudge center as it baked. A cake baked in this style of pan is called a Bundt cake, and the fluted sides give it an ornamental shape without frosting.