Making Cup Cakes...

[Suelle Profile Website]

Quote from the page before the contents list in my edition of the book (not a numbered page!)

"The cupcakes on pages 14-45 were baked in American-style cupcake cases, which are larger than standard UK sizes. If using standard cases the yield will be approx. 18 instead of 12. They will need 3-5 minutes less in the oven".

There is a difference between traditional recipes for muffins and cupcakes. Cupcakes usually cream together butter and sugar, beat in egg and liquid, then fold in the flour (as in making sponge cakes). Muffins often use melted butter or oil and mix wet and dry ingredients separately, then fold the two together gently - no beating at any stage.

I have to say that neither the cupcakes nor muffin recipes in the Hummingbird book are traditional!

[Earthmaiden Profile]

I think it's just the terminology. I would never call anything a cupcake except the things that Lyons used to make and assumed it was just another name for an American 'muffin'.

[KeenCook2 Profile]

I think it's just the terminology. I would never call anything a cupcake except the things that Lyons used to make

... yup, the chocolate ones that lent themselves to having the icing sucked or nibbled off first

[jeral Profile]

... with a lot sticking on the cases. ...

I've read lots of grumbles about sticking so it seems to be usual for some. Certainly bought muffins don't come out cleanly, although Lyon's -style cupcakes do.

Probably the mixture, but also they invented silicone muffin cupcases seemingly to address the problem. Mixed results on them probably more good reviews than bad from memory but not a silver bullet.

[Pepper Pig Profile]

Whatever happened to fairy cakes?

[Suelle Profile Website]

Whatever happened to fairy cakes?

If you want a serious answer, which I don't suppose for a moment that you do, cupcakes and fairy cakes are the same thing, just decorated in different ways!

[Pepper Pig Profile]

You know me so well . . .

[slimpersoninside Profile]

Whatever happened to fairy cakes?

If you want a serious answer, which I don't suppose for a moment that you do, cupcakes and fairy cakes are the same thing, just decorated in different ways!

Are cupcakes bigger than fairy cakes too Sue?

Thanks.

[Suelle Profile Website]

Are cupcakes bigger than fairy cakes too Sue?

Thanks.

Not in my opinion! Not the old-fashioned cupcakes that mothers used to make, rather than the bought ones with the flood of thick glacé icing on top, which filled the cases to the top.

[Pepper Pig Profile]

I only remember cupcakes as the shop bought you mention Sue. Granny and mum made fairy cakes or butterfly cakes.

[WWordsworth Profile]

My Mum made buns.

[karadekoolaid Profile]

My Mum made buns.

Thank goodness! That´s what my mum used to call them!!

There was a craze for cupcakes, about 10-12 years ago. EVERYONE was making them and charging Kensington/Chelsea/Mayfair prices for them. I refused to buy them, citing the simplicity of the recipe and the outrageous prices. (It might just have been envy, of course; I´ve never made them ) Thing is, it was "same old, same old" with the usual toppings, so I self-justified my grumpiness by saying there was no creativity left.
Until a young lady at a Gourmet Event offered me cupcakes with anchovies and sundried tomatoes.

[Suelle Profile Website]

kk - that was the start of the fashion for cupcakes to have more frosting than cake! Usually sickly buttercream!

[WWordsworth Profile]

I agree.
I never buy them, can't be doing with the sickly sweet topping.

Mum's buns were good sponge with white icing and different toppings - coconut, cherries etc.

Aren't the paper liners called bun cases any more?

PS she was a professional baker, so her buns were all the same size and beautifully risen.

[PatsyMFagan Profile]

Buns to me are either fruit ones, spicy ones or the hot cross ones.....never known a cupcake, or fairy cake as a bun

[Earthmaiden Profile]

It really is one of those many localised/regional/family language things isn't it! I would think that buns originated as an individual yeast cake with dried fruit and that the name was passed on when lighter cakes came into vogue. In some circles the latter were then given fancier names.

I was brought up with 'little cakes' for the small cakes in cases, also sometimes known as 'fairy cakes'. Cupcakes were the Lyons ones, buns were the yeast dough currant sorts in the bakers. Cases for small cakes were 'cake cases'. As I grew up and we moved away from the home counties, I knew quite a few families who called small cakes 'buns'.

I still think that cupcakes and muffins just confuse the issue more! .

[Sakkarin Profile]

I hadn't realised that about the Hummingbird book, probably because I always assumed they're the same thing, but now I realise, it seemed funny that they have a chocolate muffin and a chocolate cupcake recipe. I thought I'd excelise them... huge difference in the ingredient quantities for 12 chocolate muffins/12 chocolate cupcakes in the Hummingbird book! Maybe the cooked cupcakes only half fill the cases, and the rest is the chocolate frosting.

In my copy the contents is page 5 (right hand page), the cupcake cake case note is opposite it, although not exactly clear.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Wow, really surprised there’s so much more butter in the muffins

[Suelle Profile Website]

The Hummingbird methods for making both cupcakes and muffins are so far from the traditional methods that I don't think they are a good example for comparison.

If you compared a traditional Victoria sponge mix, often used for cupcakes, with a reliable muffin recipe you'd see more differences, i think.

[Suelle Profile Website]

Wow, really surprised there’s so much more butter in the muffins

I've just looked at two muffin recipes from Mary Berry and Annie Bell, and they use relatively small amounts of butter:

MB - 250g SR flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 75g caster sugar, 50g butter, 2 eggs, 250ml milk, 180g chocolate chips to make 12 muffins. Rub butter into flour and BP, add sugar. Mix eggs and milk and add to dry mix, mix lightly (will be lumpy) add choc chips.

AB - 225g plain flour, 2 teaspoons BP, 75g caster sugar, 30g melted butter, 1 egg, 200mls milk, 180g diced plums to make 10 muffins. Mix flour, BP and sugar. Mix egg and milk and add melted butter. Add wet to dry ingredients, mix lightly, stir in plums.

Both use a traditional sponge mix for buns and fairy cakes etc. eg 110g each flour, sugar, butter and two eggs, plus some milk (AB). Only AB calls them cupcakes, MB uses lots of names for the same sponge mix. Makes 14-18 small cakes.