"funnel cake (pan)"

[Alice Faber]

Jesse Sheidlower said:
>I was looking at "funnel cake", referring to deep-fried cake made
>by pouring batter through a funnel into deep fat (DARE: 1950,
>mostly PaGer sources), when I came across a number of cites
>for "funnel cake pan/tin", denoting an entirely different
>thing, viz. a cake pan with a tube in the center. There are
>a few Google hits; one with a picture is at
>http://www.kaleden.com/detail,kfun04041-antique-funnel,379646.html
>
>Barry posted about this a few months ago, with an 1889 Ancestry.com
>cite, but this refers to the cake-pan sense, and does not antedate
>the deep-fried batter sense.
>
>I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts about these terms.
>The pan seems to be familiar, but is apparently not called a
>"funnel cake pan" anymore; what is the current name?  Also,
>what is the purpose, in the deep-fat version, of pouring the
>batter through a funnel, instead of just dropping it from a
>spoon or something?

The pan itself is a tube pan. They're used for angel food cake or
sponge cake. Fancier pans of the same general geometry are called
bundt pans; this may or may not be a trademark.

As for the funnelling rather than spooning for funnel cake, I'd
expect that it would make it easier to control the flow of the
batter, and perhaps protect the hand from spattering oil.
--
 =============================================================================
Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
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