Nordic Ware
It’s the pan that changed the way everyone bakes cakes. In fact, two of every three American households has a Bundt pan. For National Bundt Day on Nov. 15, we caught up with Nordic Ware’s Jennifer Dalquist, granddaughter of the company’s founders and now executive vice president of sales and marketing to talk about the pan, her grandmother, and advice on baking. For more on the history of Nordic Ware read our 2022 feature.
How do you want people to celebrate National Bundt Day?
We like to say it’s the kickoff to the holiday baking season. You have Thanksgiving right around the corner and lots of holidays in December right up to New Year’s Eve. It’s when people start to think about dusting off their cake pans and baking. We want people to celebrate by pulling out their favorite pan and planning their baking.
What is your favorite Bundt pan?
My personal favorite? That is an easy question to answer because it happens to be the Dalquist family favorite. It’s the Bavaria Bundt.
What is your favorite Bundt Recipe?
My current favorite is a Cardamom Cream Bundt Cake, which kind of skews more Christmas than fall, but it’s yearround deliciousness. It doesn’t have butter, just heavy whipping cream. It’s an unusual recipe but very easy to make. Cardamom is my favorite spice to cook with and nothing says Scandinavian baking like cardamom does. If you do end up baking it, one of the things I love about it is you know how in a light-color cake vanilla bean leaves nice little black flecks in the cake? Well, in this recipe the cardamom does the same thing, so you end up with beautiful white cake just flecked with black all over the inside, and it is so good!
What’s your first memory of the significance of the Bundt?
I don’t know if this translates too well but when I was in college I had a part-time job working at Williams Sonoma at the Galleria. This is the early 2000s, which is the era we started making other shapes than the classic Bundt. Williams Sonoma launched a Bundt pan from us, that was a violet pan, and it was a pretty floral pan, and they literally couldn’t keep it in stock, and I was like, “Oh people like to bake Bundt cakes. OK.” I got my grandma Dorothy, co-founder of Nordic Ware, to come into the store and do a live Bundt-baking demonstration with me. It’s such a fond memory, and I have a photo of that day in my office.
Did you bake a lot with her?
Yes and no. It wasn’t like she was constantly teaching me various baking techniques, but we talked about food so much and ate so many of the things she created over the years. Food is a continual conversation in our family gatherings. I learned so much from her. If you brought up any food, she would remember off the top of her head facts and recipes, down to the cookbook where to find more about it.
Did she realize what she built with Nordic Ware?
She and my grandfather were very, very humble and homespun people. I just told someone this week [that] I get the feeling when I walk through our factory now and see how much it has changed, even in the time I have been working here and seen what it’s grown to, my grandfather would be absolutely tickled to see what it has become. My grandma, on the other hand, was a perfectionist up until the end. We were raised like, “That’s great what you did yesterday but, what are you going to today to improve upon it.” So, your work was never finished with my grandma. She was always pushing everyone.
What’s your best advice for home bakers?
So many people say when you ask them are you a cook or baker they say, “Oh, I’m a cook, but baking scares me.” I think people need to be OK with uncertainty and just relax with baking. Yes, there’s science to it, but have fun with it. Give it another shot. I think people get too worked up about it or think that it is not in their skill set, but I would tell them it is! It’s pretty hard to mess up a Bundt. You don’t have to have any special decorating technique because the pan does the shaping of the cake for you. The ingredients are simple and straightforward ingredients that you probably already have at home. And you have something that universally tastes delicious. The ingredients that go into a Bundt are hard to mess up.
What’s your best advice for entrepreneurs?
That’s a tough one. I think one key to success in a business small or large, you have to be willing to jump in, roll up your sleeves, and do any and every job in the company. There should be nothing that is above you or beneath you. Cause that’s how you learn and grow and inspire those around you to want to do it too.
