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baking spirits bright

Of course, not everyone was a fan. “The transition from the hot outside envelope to the frozen inside is painfully sudden, and not likely to be attended with beneficial effect,” 19th- century British journalist George Sala wrote. But it’s worked for Antoine’s! Since the late 1800s, baked Alaska has served as the signature, showstopping dessert at this New Orleans old line restaurant, where steady-handed bakers still write celebratory messages on the torched meringue exterior before delivering the sweet dish to the table.

modern cake in 15 minutes — but the straightforwardness of pound cake is what makes it a dish inexperienced bakers often turn to in the early days of dessert creation. Variations on pound cake exist across the world. In Mexico, there’s panqué con nueces (pound cake with nuts) and panqué con pasas (pound cake with raisins). In French-speaking Caribbean countries, pound cake is a Christmastime delight, often spiked with rum or a mashed banana for extra moisture. In the Brittany region of France, pound cake is known as quatre-quarts (four quarters, for the ratio of the four primary ingredients) and is set apart by using a special, You can speckle dried fruits or chocolate chips into pound cake, frost it completely if you’re feeling over-the-top, add in orange zest for an unexpected burst of citrus, or substitute some of the butter for sour cream to create a sour cream pound cake. It’s a perfect canvas for a drizzle of homemade strawberry sauce or a dollop of whipped cream, and I’ve been known to grill slices of pound cake alongside peaches in the summertime then top it off with lavender ice cream. Truly, what can’t pound cake do? local sea salt butter known as beurre sale rather than regular unsalted butter.

Or even, say, the tins specially-made for that sticky-sweet dessert rum baba? It all ties back to World War II. The actual Bundt cake itself traditionally baked in a Bundt pan

was a celebration cake across Germany, Austria, and Hungry known as bundkuchen , a name

which combined the words “bund” (a gathering of people) and “kuchen” (cake) to form a “cake for gathering.” Also known as kugelhopf , these yeasty, brioche-like baked goods are dotted with raisins and almonds and eat similarly to a coffee cake. After returning from World War II, Minnesota-native and midcentury kitchen tinkerer extraordinaire Henry David Dalquist, founder of the kitchen supplies company Nordic Ware, began making Bundt pans out of cast aluminum after a request from the Hadassah Society, an organization of Jewish women who wanted to recreate the cakes they remembered from childhood. The “t” added onto the end of “bund” was, by report, for trademarking purposes. Bundt pans now come in a wide array of sizes and patterns, but all have the distinct doughnut shape. The pan sold rather poorly until 1966, and Dalquist was for a time better known as the inventor who patented the automated rotating food tray inside microwaves. But all changed when a Bundt cake called the “Tunnel of Fudge” won second prize at the annual Pillsbury Bakeoff, a competition closely watched and celebrated by homemakers across the country. More than 200,000 requests for the pan funneled into the Nordic Ware company, and the Bundt soon easily surpassed the top-tier tin of the day, the Jell-O mold, as the most sought-after pan in the United States. This cake tin is so pivotal to American culture that several of the original Bundt pans produced by Dalquist are even displayed in the Smithsonian! Today, the Bundt cake is one of a handful of confections that derives its name not from its ingredients or recipe, but rather its shape. You can make angel food cake in a Bundt pan, bake a traditional chocolate cake in

POUND CAKE ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT DISPLAY CASE VIEW: A golden — often loaf- shaped — butter cake with a particularly dense crumb. ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT THE SWEET STORY:

Pound cake — that velvety, dense baked good often cut in slices so thick they could be used as coasters — has an alarmingly simple recipe at its core. A pound of flour, pound of butter, pound of sugar, a pound of eggs. Simple enough, right? It’s a no- frills, kitchen-staple-ingredient dessert with a luminous golden hue (thanks to all that butter and yolk) that doesn’t need any gussied-up additions — unless, of course, bakers want to gild the lily a little bit. Typically cooked in a loaf, tube or Bundt pan, pound cake dates back to the early 1700s, and was first recorded in Amelia Simmons 1795 book, American Cookery . “One pound sugar, one pound butter, one pound flour, one pound or ten eggs,” Simmons writes. “Rose water, spices to your taste; watch it well, it will bake in a slow oven in 15 minutes.” Our measurements and bake times are a little bit larger and longer today — after all, you can’t bake a

BUNDT CAKE ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT DISPLAY CASE VIEW:

A circular, fluted cake with a distinctive hole in the middle.

ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT THE SWEET STORY: While Bundt cake pans are par for the course in kitchens today, few inquiring minds stop to ask why this pan in particular has enjoyed such ubiquity in American kitchen cabinets. After all, why not the madeleine pan?

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