A Bundt cake is the name used for a dessert cake cooked in a Bundt pan. The Bundt pan (a registered trademark) was created in 1950 by H. David Dalquist, founder of Nordic Ware, at the request of members of the Hadassah Society's chapter in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They were interested in a pan that could be used to make bundkuchen (sometimes called kugelhopf or Gugelhupf), a popular German coffee cake. The old-world pans, made of delicate ceramic or heavy cast iron, were difficult to use. He modified some existing Scandinavian pan designs by introducing folds in the outer edge, and fashioned the pan out of aluminum.The pan sold somewhat slowly

until a Pillsbury-sponsored baking contest in 1966 saw a Bundt cake win second place. This prompted a scramble for the pans, causing them to become the most-sold pan in the United States soon after. Since introduction, more than 50 million Bundt pans have been sold by the Nordic Ware company.

The name Bundt comes from the German word bund. Dalquist simply added the letter t to the end and trademarked it. Pillsbury licensed the name in 1970 for a line of cake mixes.

In early 2007 some of the original Bundt pans were taken into the Smithsonian Institute's collection.