We can owe the entire bundt cake phenomenon to one single recipe: the Tunnel of Fudge cake.

Following World War II, a man named H. David Dahlquist returned home to Minneapolis after serving in the Navy. With a degree in chemical engineering, he founded a small bake-ware company called Nordic Ware. In 1950, members of the women’s Zionist group Hadassah approached Dahlquist and asked him to create a modern pan to make the classic European pastry kugelhopf – a tall, brioche cake baked in ceramic molds. The company developed a round, aluminum tube pan and trademarked the name “bundt.”

Ella Rita Helfrich, second place winner in the 1966 Pillsbury Bake-Off, places a bundt pan with her prize-winning Tunnel of Fudge cake in the oven.

For the next 16 years, the company barely sold any of the new pans. Several times the company considered discontinuing it. Recipes for bundt or “fluted tube” cakes occasionally appeared in cookbooks, but none of them were terribly popular.

Enter Mrs. Ella Helfrich of Houston, Texas. In 1966, she came in 2nd place in the annual Pillsbury Bake-Off competition with the Tunnel of Fudge Cake, a chocolate-nut bundt cake that seemingly magically baked with a fudgy center. Helfrich lost out to Mrs. Mari Petrelli’s Golden Gate Snack Bread, but her recipe became one of Pillsbury’s most requested recipes. Over 200,000 letters poured in, not only requesting the recipe but information about where to purchase the unique cake pans.

To meet the demand for bundt pans, Dahlquist put his factory into round-the-clock production, eventually turning out 30,000 pans a day. Within four years, he licensed the “bundt” name to Pillsbury. Pillsbury created a ready-made cake mix line specifically for bundts, and sold packages that included the bundt pans and mixes. For the next twenty years, bundt cakes were a staple dessert in the American kitchen. Several of the original bundt pans made by Dahlquist are now in the collections of the Smithsonian.

At some point, Pillsbury unexpectedly discontinued the key ingredient in the recipe – their Double Dutch Fudge Buttercream Frosting Mix. The outcry was so immense, Pillsbury brought the powdered mix back for a time though they eventually did discontinue the mix permanently. Responding to demand, they published an adapted recipe that attempted to recreate the frosting mix using powdered sugar and cocoa. The new recipe also includes a chocolate glaze for the cake.

To this day, the Tunnel of Fudge cake remains the most popular recipe in the history of the Pillsbury Bake-Off competition.

TIPS AND TRICKS

Follow the instructions carefully. It is absolutely essential to use nuts in this recipe. The fudgey center doesn’t form without them. Walnuts were used in the first printed recipe from Pillsbury, but the recipe’s inventor, Mrs. Helfrich, used pecans.

It is also important to grease and flour your pan to ensure the cake removes cleanly. Carefully work a half tablespoon of butter into all of the folds of the pan. Add a couple tablespoons of flour into the pan and roll the pan to evenly coat the edges. Shake out the excess flour.

Some people attempt to follow the original recipe using canned frosting. The ingredient the original recipe refers to was a powdered mix used to make frosting. Canned frosting won’t work. The adaptation Pillsbury made attempts to recreate the powdered mix at home.

In an article for the New York Times, Shirley O. Corriher suggests toasting the nuts before adding them to the batter for enhanced flavor.

THE TAKE-AWAY

The annual Pillsbury Bake-Off has become one of the great American culinary traditions. While the general public doesn’t follow it with the same level of fanaticism it once did, it captures the creative ingenuity of the experimental home baker, and no other recipe captures the spirit of the Pillsbury Bake-Off more than the Tunnel of Fudge cake. It’s worth making it for this reason alone.

The original recipe magically produced a gooey ring of fudge in the center of the cake. Unfortunately, the adapted recipe from Pillsbury does not produce quite the same affect, though the inside still has a soft fudge-like taste.

This is a recipe that suggests classic retro baking, while still appealing to contemporary tastes. Yes, it’s a bit labor intensive compared to buying a cake or using a mix. It’s also gimmicky, but that’s partly the appeal. It is a crowd-pleaser and a conversation piece for your next special occasion. And with nearly four cups of sugar in the cake alone, it has enough to satisfy even the most fickle of sweet-tooths.

Original 1966 Recipe:
Tunnel of Fudge Cake
by Mrs. C. J. Helfrich, Houston Texas

1 1/2 cups soft Land O’Lakes Butter
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups Pillsbury’s Best Flour
1 package Pillsbury Two Layer Size Double Dutch Fudge Buttercream Frosting Mix (*see note above)
3 cups chopped Diamond Walnuts

Oven 350 degrees. 10-inch tube cake. Cream butter in large mixer bowl at high speed of mixer. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Gradually add sugar; continue creaming at high speed until light and fluffy. By hand, stir in flour, frosting mix and walnuts until well blended. Pour batter into greased Bundt pan or 10-inch tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 60 to 65 minutes. Cool 2 hours; remove from pan. Cool completely before serving.

From The Pillsbury Busy Lady Bake-Off Recipes (1966)

Pillsbury’s Modern Adaptation:
Cake
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups margarine or butter, softened
6 eggs
2 cups powdered sugar
2 1/4 cups Pillsbury BEST® All Purpose or Unbleached Flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups chopped walnuts

Glaze
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
4 to 6 teaspoons milk

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 12-cup fluted tube cake pan or 10-inch tube pan. In large bowl, combine sugar and margarine; beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually add 2 cups powdered sugar; blend well. By hand, stir in flour and remaining cake ingredients until well blended. Spoon batter into greased and floured pan; spread evenly.

Bake at 350°F. for 45 to 50 minutes or until top is set and edges are beginning to pull away from sides of pan.** Cool upright in pan on wire rack 1 1/2 hours. Invert onto serving plate; cool at least 2 hours.

In small bowl, combine all glaze ingredients, adding enough milk for desired drizzling consistency. Spoon over top of cake, allowing some to run down sides. Store tightly covered.

Recipe from Pillsbury

This southern recipe is basically a sweet rice pudding made with eggs, butter, milk and sugar. Recipes for rice puddings are very old, and even the earliest records of civilization depict grain custards such as this. Rice was thought to have medicinal qualities and through the mid-20th century, it was often given to the sick and infirm. The Byzantine physician Anthimus even gave a recipe for it in his “On the Observance of Food” (530 A.D.) called oriza, which used goat milk and no sweetener.

As I mentioned in the recipe post for Hardtack, a naval blockade from the north prevented a great number of foods from being imported to the south, including wheat. Cooks needed to adapt many recipes to what was available, and starchy rice and potatoes were popular additions to breads and cakes as flour substitutes (rice being a popular crop in the marshy areas of Louisiana and South Carolina).

In fact, this recipe comes from a cookbook from the period that offers many such suggestions to help ease the discomfort of food shortages. The Confederate Receipt Book: A Compilation of Over One Hundred Receipts, Adapted to the Times was printed in 1863 in Richmond, Virginia on polka-dot wallpaper, since regular paper was in short supply. Only five copies of the cookbook are known to have survived, but it has been reprinted many times since then. Many of the recipes from this and other cookbooks like it would re-emerge during the Great Depression.

TIPS AND TRICKS

Custards generally benefit from using whole milk.

If you don’t have leftover cooked rice, boil about 1/2 a cup of uncooked white rice with 1 cup of water in a covered pot until the water is absorbed, which takes about 15-20 minutes.

Like making mayonaise, it helps to have all of your ingredients at room temperature. Take your eggs, milk and butter out of the fridge at least an hour prior to starting the recipe.

This is not really a recipe that stores well. It is meant to be cooked prior to serving, and eaten when it cools to room temperature.

THE TAKE-AWAY

At first, I was a bit worried that this pudding would be bland and eggy without the use of flavorings like vanilla or chocolate, but it had a sweet taste to it that didn’t need it – though it could be added if you wanted.

There are many who are put-off by the texture of rice pudding – the custard itself is smooth, but then you hit these rice grains. If it doesn’t bother you, then don’t be afraid of making rice puddings from scratch. Custards are one of those magic recipes like souffles that are hyped up to be much more difficult than they actually are. The two main things to remember is to keep stirring the custard and keep it on medium-low heat so that it doesn’t burn or curdle.

At a time of incredible hardship for much of the south, this would have been a sweet and filling treat to soothe the stomach. By the end of the war, however, sugar, eggs and butter were scarce and such a recipe would not likely have been possible except in the wealthiest of homes.

You’ll notice the recipe itself is rather brief. It was assumed the average cook knew the basics of making a custard. I’ve fleshed it out a bit in the adaptation below, but have stuck to the original recipe and proportions.

From Confederate Receipt Book: A Compilation of Over One Hundred Receipts, Adapted to the Times, Richmond, VA: West & Johnson, 1863.

“Take one cup of soft boiled rice, a pint of milk, a cup of sugar, three eggs, and piece of butter the size of an egg. Serve with sauce.”

Adaptation:

3 small eggs or two large eggs
2 cups of milk
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons butter, soft
1 cup of cooked rice (see note above)

Beat the eggs with the milk, sugar and butter using a whisk. Stir in cooked rice, making sure the rice grains are un-clumped. Heat mixture in a saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring frequently with whisk. Mixture will thicken after about 25 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Yields four servings.

A caramel sauce is traditional, and can be made by heating 3 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan and stirring in 1/2 cup of sugar and 3 tablespoons of water. The sugar will caramelize and become pourable. Alternatively, towards the end of the war when sugar was scarce, molasses would likely have been poured over the top.

Abraham Lincoln rarely spoke on matters relating to food. But during the first of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln shared a story about gingerbread men that stayed with him well into his presidency. Indeed, what madeleines were to Proust, gingerbread men were to Lincoln – few things conjured such strong memories of childhood.

The debate had begun innocently enough, with Stephen Douglas indulgently complimenting his opponent as a tactic to win over the crowd. But the debate soon turned ugly, with Douglas personally attacking Lincoln, suggesting that if Lincoln were elected to the Senate, he would pit the states against each other over the question of slavery. In an attempt to change the tone of the debate, Lincoln responded with a childhood story. When he was growing up in Indiana, his mother would occasionally be able to get her hands on ginger and sorghum to make gingerbread – special treats given the family’s relative poverty. One day, his mother made some gingerbread, and out of the batch she had made young Abe three gingerbread men. He took them outside to eat them under the shade of a hickory tree.

As he was sitting there, the young boy of an even poorer neighboring family came along and said “Abe, gimme a man.” Abe gave him one of his gingerbread men, and the boy devoured it in two bites while Abe was still biting the legs off of his first. “Abe,” the boy said, “Gimme that other’n.” Lincoln wanted the other for himself, but he gave it to him and the boy devoured it just as before. “You seem to like gingerbread men,” Lincoln observed. “Abe,” he replied, “I don’t s’pose anybody on earth likes gingerbread better’n I do – and gets less’n I do…”

Turning to Douglas in the midst of the debate, Lincoln said he couldn’t understand how he had so completely misunderstood his positions, and noted that he had been blindsided by Douglas’s flattery. Recalling the debate, Lincoln noted “I was not very accustomed to flattery and it came the sweeter to me. I was rather like the Hoosier, with the gingerbread, when he said he reckoned he loved it better than any other man, and got less of it.”

The gingerbread story became part of the Lincoln legend, and he repeated it during his presidency to reporters at the White House. Lincoln’s mother’s recipe does not survive, nor do any personal recipes from his wife Mary Todd Lincoln. She cooked out of necessity and was reportedly never terribly good at it. When the Lincolns moved to Washington, Mary was grateful to have cooks in her household – grateful not only to not have to cook, but also to demonstrate the family had class and weren’t the “back-woods hicks” many of Lincoln’s opponents accused them of being.

Though she didn’t leave personal recipes behind, it is well known that the first lady enthusiastically followed the receipts and housekeeping advice from Eliza Leslie, the early 19th century equivalent to Irma Rombauer and Emily Post. In her 1847 volume The Lady’s Receipt-Book: A Useful Companion For Large Or Small Families – which Mary Todd Lincoln almost certainly would have had – Leslie gives several recipes for gingerbread, including a recipe for ginger crackers that would be firm enough to cut into shapes.

Most of what we think of gingerbread today are actually ginger cookies. Traditional gingerbread is much more like a thick, dark cake sweetened with sorghum or molasses. To make the gingerbread men, Abe’s mother likely made gingerbread and reserved some of the batter, added more flour to it to make a solid dough, and then cut out the cookies in the shape of men.

So in lieu of Lincoln’s actual recipe for gingerbread men, I offer this substitute which would very likely have been used in the Lincoln household. Sorghum can be substituted for molasses if you have access to it. The fresher the ground ginger the more intense the flavor will be. If you prefer a stronger ginger flavor, add an extra teaspoon to the recipe. It’s really a matter of personal taste.

As Leslie mentions in the recipe, these crackers/cookies are “excellent on sea voyage” – if kept dry, they will last quite some time. The instructions here are a bit vague – as most old recipes used to be. Make sure you have a full bag of flour on hand just in case. I found that “sufficient flour to make a dough just stiff enough to roll” was several cups. You can use a stand mixer for convenience. I’m a bit of a masochist though, and stirred by hand using a solid wooden spoon. It’s good for your arm muscles.

Once the dough comes together you’ll need to work a bit quickly to prevent the dough from drying. While rolling, keep the extra dough under a damp cloth. Do try to roll the dough thinly, as the resulting cookie is a bit firm. If it’s too thick, you might have difficulty biting down into the front part. The firmness owes to the lower fat content of the recipe. Adding more butter or shortening would make a softer cookie.

Placing the cookies on parchment paper before baking will help prevent sticking. A moderately brisk oven can be translated to about 400 degrees, for about 4 to 6 minutes. Watch these like a hawk, though. As soon as they start browning, remove them.

I should say that in addition to being a very interesting recipe, they actually produce really good cookies too. Try them out and post your impressions below!

Ginger Crackers, from Eliza Leslie’s The Lady’s Receipt-Book: A Useful Companion For Large Or Small Families (1847)

Pound cake is one of those recipes that has changed so much over the years that it bares only a feint resemblance today to what it actually was.

Growing up, light and fluffy “Angel Food” cakes would sometimes be labeled pound cake in the grocery store. Sara Lee corners the prepared pound-cake market today with their intensely buttery frozen confection.

The original is something all-together different, and very old. This recipe, the oldest I’ve attempted, dates from Amelia Simmons’ groundbreaking tome American Cookery from 1796. The recipe certainly predates Simmons’ by centuries.

At a time when few except the wealthy aristocracy were literate (and they were rarely found in kitchens shoulders deep in pots), cookbooks were something of a rarity. Recipes were passed down through training, or scratched out as “receipts,” or were gimicky so as to remember how to do it. The pound cake is an example of the latter.

A pound of flour, a pound of sugar, a pound of butter, and a pound of eggs. Mix it together and you get the basic batter for a cake or sweet bread. From there, the spice and flavor variations are a matter of taste and regional custom.

American Cookery was the first cookbook written by an American for an American audience, using uniquely American ingredients like cranberries and squash. It was also the first published book to offer printed recipes for cornmeal.

Very little is known of Simmons. The most we get is in an advertisement for a subsequent printing of the cookbook, claiming that the author did not have the education to write the book herself, and had thus hired someone to record the receipts for her. This individual, the advertisement claims, took liberties which Simmons was unaware of until after the book’s publication. Thus, the reprint was not only to meet the extraordinary demand for the volume, but to also correct some of the mistakes.

The cake produced by this recipe is an interesting one. Note the vague use of spices, and the use of rose water instead of the now ubiquitous vanilla extract. Vanilla would have been an immensely expensive and rare commodity. The rose water actually gives the cake a flavor similar to banana bread. A gill is roughly four ounces, which I thought would be too overpowering. I used two ounces and thought it gave a nice hint of rose. Discussing with my taste testers / friends, we concluded three ounces would probably be just right.

As for spices, cinnamon would also have been something of a rare treat. Nutmeg was very much the spice of the period, as were cloves and allspice. Be generous.

Originally the batter would likely have been made in a large dutch oven, placed next to a fire, and surrounded with hot coals where it would slowly bake. Wanting to approximate this, I used a greased enameled dutch oven, sans lid, in a low temperature oven, and found that the center was really struggling to cook through despite an aluminum foil crown to prevent the edges from burning. Try a large casserole pan, several round cake pans, or even better, a large bundt. While there is no leavening agent in this cake, be warned that it does expand while baking.

Overall, it’s not a bad cake and certainly the rosey/spicy taste and dense texture evokes an earlier time prior to bleached flours and frozen mechanically prepared cakes. Well worth the experiment and a fun conversation piece.

From Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery (Hartford: Simeon Butler), 1796

1 pound sugar
1 pound butter, softened
1 pound flour, unbleached and unenriched
10 eggs
2 to 4 ounces consumable rose water
3 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp allspice
1 tsp ground cloves

Cream together softened butter with sugar. Stir in eggs one at a time. Stir in 2-4 ounces of rose water, to taste. Separately, combine flour and spices. Gradually stir flour mixture into egg mixture until well combined. Pour batter into a large greased dutch oven, casserole, set of cake pans, or a large bundt. Bake 300 degrees until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean – depending on the pan, between 40-60 minutes. Let cool before de-panning. Serves 10.