We've covered the cupcakes vs. muffins debate before, but it never seems to get old.
Jan Bilton of The Marlborough Express asks, "What's in a name?"
Over the years muffins have become sweeter and many cupcakes more savoury. Even the process for making the two has become similar. Traditionally cupcakes required the beating of butter and sugar until creamy then slowly adding the beaten eggs and folding in the sifted flour and raising agent.
Nowadays anything goes. (When preparing muffins, the dry ingredients are mixed together then the combined liquid ingredients are added and mixed in until just moistened.)
Cupcake is a quaint name. Back before muffin or cupcake pans had been invented, little cakes were often baked in individual pottery cups, ramekins or moulds.
However, some food writers have suggested that the name was acquired from the amount of ingredients used to make the cake, for example, a cup of butter and a cup of sugar.
Whatever the truth, the popularity of both muffins and cupcakes is unquestionable. There are countless books published on both and it appears that imagination is the only limit to the creation of either.
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