cupcakes? muffins? and fairy cakes?

minimacka

Can anyone help me get my head round the difference in these, you can buy a muffin tins and muffin cases to make muffins, you can buy cake tins and cake cases for fairy cakes but how do you make cupcakes. I would really like to make some of these towards a mothers day pressie but im at a loss on what trays and cases to use. Are cupcakes really fairy cakes in disguise?
Sorry if I sound really thick

mm.

sooz

I'm fairly sure cupcakes and fairy cakes are the same thing. I think cupcake is the american word for them.

all when eaten to excess give you a muffin top

princesspoppypop

Cupcakes tend to be smaller cakes... like fairy cakes but can also be bigger cakes too... its very confusing... but if you want to make smaller cupcakes just use the standard size cake cases and decorate with icing,butter icing and sprinkles.

Im making large cupcakes for my mum using the strawberry muffin cases I got from ebay and im decorating them with pink piped icing and silver balls.

:j

minimacka

Thank you both for your very quicky replys, its very confusing isnt it, and yes you would get a muffin top if you ate all the cupcakes :rotfl:

NBirdy

In our house a fairy cake is a sponge mix in the small cake cases, with a circle of cake cut out of the top when cooked. The resulting crater is filled with buttercream, the circle of cake is cut in half, and the two bits stuck into the buttercream to form little 'wings' - hence the fairy cake part.

A cupcake would be where you don't put so much mix in the cases, and put a thick layer of icing all over the top to totally cover the sponge.

Muffins - quite different texture and of course much bigger and deeper.

Maybe my house is just weird though lol! Interesting to find out how others see the distinction.

Gingernutmeg

For me, a fairy cake is what I'd call a 'bun' - made in the shallower tins with a 'creamed' cake mixture (sugar and butter creamed, eggs, and flour folded in).

A cupcake is made with the same creamed mixture, but is in a slightly different case, so that it's not quite so wide and shallow. For me, a cupcake is a slightly taller cake, usually decorated with a buttercream icing, sprinkles, toppers etc.

A muffin is the biggest one, made in the 'muffin' tins and cases. This is made by mixing wet ingredients with dry, and usually the fat is in liquid form (melted butter or oil). Then it's mixed really briefly. To me, muffins are rarely 'topped', so no icing or buttercream.

Emms

I would say fairy cakes are the small buns you make in small cases like the ones below.




Cupcakes are taller, kinda half way between fairy cakes and muffins, and are generally more extravagent than fairy cakes with lots of icing on top (somerfield do a very yum pack of four)




And muffins are muffins lol




Anything remotely cake like will do me though. Im not fussy lol

Emma

minimacka

So do you use the same cake cases for the fairy cakes and the cupcakes.

I would love to make this for a mothers day pressie i think its lovely:

http://www.cupcake-creations.com/bunch-flowers-cupcake-decoration.html

I might need to experiment this weekend with the cupcakes and take them into work on monday for my colleagues to try.

Today i made them some of those lovely hotnob biscuits and some shortbread hearts. They will eat anything even my cooking attempts. :T

princesspoppypop

minimacka wrote: »

So do you use the same cake cases for the fairy cakes and the cupcakes.

I would love to make this for a mothers day pressie i think its lovely:

http://www.cupcake-creations.com/bunch-flowers-cupcake-decoration.html

I might need to experiment this weekend with the cupcakes and take them into work on monday for my colleagues to try.

Today i made them some of those lovely hotnob biscuits and some shortbread hearts. They will eat anything even my cooking attempts. :T

Wow that is lovely...

For those cakes I would use the standard cake case you can get in most supermarkets.:D

Gingernutmeg

If you're handy with a piping bag, there's a great video here on Youtube showing you how to make gorgeous flower cupcakes

minimacka

princesspoppypop wrote: »

Wow that is lovely...

For those cakes I would use the standard cake case you can get in most supermarkets.:D

Would you use a muffin tin then?

Im going to have to have a go with these before hand and i might need to invest in a muffin tin i think.

Thanks for your help. :A
xx