In the time of recession, the rise of Nationalism and White Supremacy, it’s good to know that cup cakes are having a revival.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8315245.stm

I'm pretty sure cupcakes existed and were being sold before then

There is a shop in Covent Garden which has some incredibly intricate cup cakes for sale.

Yes long before. Though they were called Fairy cakes which is probably considered homophobic now.

I missed that memo, obviously. To me cupcakes are horribly sweet sticky chocolate things that came in tin foil cups.

Are the tin foil cups essential? I remember making them with paper cases. Though I never bothered with the fancy icing toppings too often.

No, you see, paper cups are used for fairy cakes. The tin foil cups were used by Lyons or Mr Kipling or whichever of the Rank Hovis McDougal brands made the cup cakes of my childhood.

I was under the impression that a fairy cake had a hollow cut out the top and filled with icing/jam or something else and the bit that had been cut out was cut in half and put back in to make the fairy wings. Looking a little like this:



Although the wings are the wrong way round to my mind in that picture.
A cup cake is the same but without cutting out the top. You just have a load of icing or whatever on top of a little sponge bun/cake.

Well, to me that's a butterfly cake. A fairy cake just has the icing and maybe those little silver sugar balls or hundreds and thousands, while a cup cake is neither of those things. Those foil-cupped items of confectionery I referred to were a whole lot larger than your standard fairy cake.

Calling fairy cakes cup cakes seems to be another US imported confection. Did you see what I did there?

*goes and licks clean the cake mix bowl*

I'm with HK on this one

That is my mistake. But they are basically the same, or are cupcakes pretentious?

What are called cupcakes now seem to be fairycakes, but we've apparently adopted a US name for them. Admittedly, both kinds of cake are made in paper cups, so perhaps it was some PC nutter somewhere being offended on someone else's behalf. Of course, you can guarantee they didn't actually ask anyone if they were offended.

What was this thread about originally?

With nothing better to do, I've done a picture search.

This link takes you to the lemon cupcake I remember, with the metal foil cup.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/facelessme ... 792890241/

Here's some fairy cakes...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tvicar/360442227/

Butterfly cake...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28439449@N02/3312327444/

And finally, my particular fave, chocolate crispies...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vickyeastwood/3033747618/

Omnomnomnomnom...

I would call that a butterfly cake as well. Though the recipes were identical. As for the size you can now get jumbo sized paper cases or metal foil cases for cakes/muffins. So I would think that is is down to preference. Manufacturers probably prefer metal cases because they are sturdier.

As for the name I will accept that it is an American import. Maybe they thought that fairy cakes was homophobic?

Yes, but who are "they"? The same people who ban Christmas decorations in case it offends Muslims?

People who take offence on behalf of other people and spoil everyone's day offend me.