The cake funnel, also known as a cake fan or cake bird as Americans like to call it, is a late Victorian utensil. They were designed to prevent juices from spilling onto the dough or oven floor and also to support the pie crust and prevent it from sinking.

The first recorded pie funnel was made in 1880 by Dean and Morris and was made in three sizes. Since then, 44 different patents and registered designs have been filed in Great Britain and many of these can still be purchased today. One of the first recorded figures was a blackbird, registered in 1933 in Australia by Grace Seccombe as the Pie Crust Lifter. A J Wilkinson (Clarice Cliff) registered a blackbird funnel design in 1936 and many of these were produced, including the white wartime version; some were stamped Wilkinson, Newport Pottery, or later Midwinter.

Before the appearance of the cake funnel, people would have used an egg cup or even a macaroni stick. As cakes come in different sizes and depths, so do funnels, and were often produced in sets. Among these sets are the Adcock Crust Support, Ventilator, and Fountain. These early funnels often had wide chimneys to vent steam under the crust, but also to add additional broth to the pie during the long, slow cooking process.

If you want to collect cake funnels, you’re in luck, as every household in Britain would have once had one or more of these. As diet and cooking styles have changed in the last twenty years, the cake funnel is no longer an everyday object and is probably stuck somewhere in the back of a cabinet or drawer.

Some cake funnels have fetched quite high prices, but you should be able to start a collection for a small amount of money. Check your local auctions and auto trunk sales and you should be able to get your hands on some of the simple pie funnels for a fairly low price. You may also want to check internet auction sites as they are useful for researching prices.

Some of the famous porcelain makers, such as Spode, Royal Worcester, Denby, Shelley and Grimwade, have produced pie funnels commercially, but it was Grimwade who produced the widest variety of designs, five of which are patented or have a registered design. These include the ‘elephant cake funnel/ring holder’, which was produced in white and grey, to the latest ‘Bleriot Pie Divider’ produced in three different sizes, which separated the cake pan into two parts so that two meats or fruit can be baked in the same pie. Each of these dividers came with their own specific proprietary pie plate.

Grimwade produced ‘The Improved Pie Funnel’ and it is quite rare and sold so well that an updated version was produced and called ‘The Improved Folk Cake Funnel’. These came in various sizes, advertising early grocery and china shops as well as department stores around the world, from Moose Jaw’s TW Robinson Co Ltd in Canada to Ritchies of Dunedin in New Zealand, as well as across the UK. .

While most cake funnels are made from ceramic, there are also a great selection made from Pyrex glass, aluminum, and plastic. Most early examples were produced commercially by larger potters making a wide range of white pottery, but later smaller potters produced limited editions of true works of art. Leading the way was Stuart Bass, who has produced over 300 different designs since the mid-1970s.

A book called British Pie Funnels has been produced to try to fill in some of the gaps related to the traditional British pie funnel, as little has been written on the subject. This provides a useful background for any new or experienced collector and some of the illustrations should prove helpful in identifying the various pieces.