"Bundt" Beautiful

A few years back I started hitching a ride on the Bundt cake brigade. I think it started with a purchase of a small pan at a garage sale. In always see them as a Baking Category at the MN State Fair. I don't think they were a staple of my childhood. We always had square tin Chocolate cakes or a tall, circular Carrot or German Chocolate. 

Somewhere along the line, I found the Nordicware factory a few miles from my house and was drawn to the bargain outlet in the back with dented wonders and out-of-season cookie cutters among other treasures. Their birthday club coupons continued to bring me back annually.

But the last year has upped it a notch. With fabulous cookie stamps in Honeycombs and snowflakes, a decadent lattice bread pan and other things that cannot be found elsewhere. Last August I caught a glance of their signature cookbook at the cashier and decided I should peruse it. I did purchase one, but found it used on line for half the cost.

It was only on reading the first chapters that I came to understand the impact of this small MN family and their simple creation that took the baking industry by storm in the late 1950's. It came from a German cake called a Gugelhupf. Basically a round coffee cake with a hole in the middle. Nordicware came up with the name Bundt based on bundkuchen which meant a cake for gatherings. He simply added the consonant T to pronounce the sound of the word with a German dialect.

A recent feature on CBS Sunday morning explores both the history and science of the pans. The concept of a hole in the center has less to do with visual and more about making it easier to bake thick cakes more evenly by allowing the center cone to heat more of the surface area. The cake pan really came to fashion after the National Pillsbury Bake Off in 1966. The Tunnel of Fudge Cake did not even win but was the 2nd place recipe and ignited a craze that propelled Nordicware into fame.

CBS Sunday: Origin of the Bundt Pan

They now come in so many variations of the original mold. I have a collection of 3 right now which seems plenty. They are pretty fool-proof; other than making sure those intricate pans are greased well to they release with all the beautiful patterns. The cakes are always moist, rich and with that Bundt Collection book - there are enough to impress every season. You may not need to go out and buy one. But if see one at a garage sale or a thrift store - grab it and give an easy recipe a try. You won't regret it.

Mácnas Mania for Halloween

I can't speak from personal viewing, but there is this bizarre Halloween parade in Ireland that seems to be where Day of the Dead collides with Mardis Gras and a bit of Macy's Thanksgiving thrown in for sparkle.

 

Here in Minneapolis we have a puppet theater company called Barebones that does something community on a much smaller scale. When I first started digging into this, I couldn't quite grasp what Mácnas was? They began back in 1986 as a performance company that put its effort into creating public events in open & undefined spaces. The term itself is an Irish slang term meaning "frolicking." They attempt to make theater that is pioneering, inventive and radical. Their arenas branch internationally into so many tangents, including touring with U2 in 1993 and also anchoring at the SXSW Music Festival.

 

Their parades became a staple at the turn of the century. Again, they were community based events and all had an element of storytelling & folk tales, usually during a summer Festival in Galway where they are located. At some point they landed onto the calendar during Halloween which has roots as an Irish Pagan festival in itself. The Parade has been an off/ on happening in recent years but this year has returned in full regalia. So much so, that it is occurring in both Galway and Dublin on consecutive nights. The parade is an hour and a half in length, but because the story unfolds in real time, every spectator along the route takes in a different part of the telling.

Mácnas offices are spread across two locations in the city. Administration and rehearsals mainly take place in Fisheries Field. Large-scale construction primarily takes place at a warehouse in Liosban. The cast consists of company members and expands to engage community members with various talents. I cannot even imagine the designers and visual artists that create the elements of the puppets and floats.

For 2023 they are drawing on a Mexican Folk tale of La Lobo who is a half-wolf woman who ravages the streets on the eve of Halloween to collect bones of the dead. At midnight she sings to the bones of these lost souls and brings them back to life for a brief moment to reflect on their past.

So this magical team of 200 creates music, soundscapes, costumes and live art to weave this magical dark tale as the parade watchers join in the revelry and frolicking. Wanna go next year?!