Muffins vs. Cupcakes
A friend recently gave me a chocolate chip cupcake. It was rather large and had no frosting on it, so I said, "Thank you for the muffin!" She informed me that it was in fact a cupcake, not a muffin. It was then that I realized that I had no idea what the difference between muffins and cupcakes is. It has come down to several factors, according various sources:
1. They are normally different sizes, cupcakes being smaller.
2. Cupcakes have more sugar.
3. Muffins don't have frosting.
The third difference is one I've already grappled with, since apparently my friend was giving me a cupcake, even without frosting. I feel that a cupcake is sort of like a person in that if you put a hat on a person, he's still the same person. Similarly, if you put frosting on a muffin, it's still a muffin, and cupcakes are still cupcakes without frosting. Also, have you eaten those muffins with sugar glazes on them? Kind of like frosting...
My experience with the gigantic cupcake also threw the first difference into question. It was distinctly muffin sized, but she told me it was a cupcake. I've also had small, cupcake-sized muffins.
Perhaps the only legitimate difference is that of sugar content. Cupcakes, admittedly, have more sugar. But I feel that the line has become increasingly blurred. Perhaps in earlier days, muffins had far less sugar than pancakes, and didn't taste to sweet. But no more! The muffins you can buy in bakeries nowadays have plenty of sugar, and how. Muffins and cupcakes may have a slightly different texture, but if you slapped frosting on a muffin, it would probably taste about the same, and I don't know that I would know the difference.
The only conclusion to be drawn is that there is in fact no difference between cupcakes and muffins. A blueberry muffin is secretly also a blueberry cupcake, but a blueberry cupcake is strange, so we market it as a blueberry muffin. I think this realization that I've had about cupcakes and muffins is in fact tied to the feeling I had as a child when I would go to Starbucks with my parents. I would always ask for the chocolate chip muffin, and feel that I'd tricked them. They didn't know it, but I'd pulled the wool over their eyes, and was in fact eating a cupcake at 8 in the morning. I felt that Starbucks was conspiring with children everywhere, and I was in on it.
My theory is that the muffin/cupcake divide was created by some especially clever, for children exactly like I was. Parents could say, "Well, it's kind of like a cupcake, but it's actually a muffin, so I can give this to Jimmy this morning." Then the children gleefully eat what they know is a glorified, pseudo-healthier cupcake. And to whomever it was who conceived this: well done.
1. They are normally different sizes, cupcakes being smaller.
2. Cupcakes have more sugar.
3. Muffins don't have frosting.
The third difference is one I've already grappled with, since apparently my friend was giving me a cupcake, even without frosting. I feel that a cupcake is sort of like a person in that if you put a hat on a person, he's still the same person. Similarly, if you put frosting on a muffin, it's still a muffin, and cupcakes are still cupcakes without frosting. Also, have you eaten those muffins with sugar glazes on them? Kind of like frosting...
My experience with the gigantic cupcake also threw the first difference into question. It was distinctly muffin sized, but she told me it was a cupcake. I've also had small, cupcake-sized muffins.
Perhaps the only legitimate difference is that of sugar content. Cupcakes, admittedly, have more sugar. But I feel that the line has become increasingly blurred. Perhaps in earlier days, muffins had far less sugar than pancakes, and didn't taste to sweet. But no more! The muffins you can buy in bakeries nowadays have plenty of sugar, and how. Muffins and cupcakes may have a slightly different texture, but if you slapped frosting on a muffin, it would probably taste about the same, and I don't know that I would know the difference.
The only conclusion to be drawn is that there is in fact no difference between cupcakes and muffins. A blueberry muffin is secretly also a blueberry cupcake, but a blueberry cupcake is strange, so we market it as a blueberry muffin. I think this realization that I've had about cupcakes and muffins is in fact tied to the feeling I had as a child when I would go to Starbucks with my parents. I would always ask for the chocolate chip muffin, and feel that I'd tricked them. They didn't know it, but I'd pulled the wool over their eyes, and was in fact eating a cupcake at 8 in the morning. I felt that Starbucks was conspiring with children everywhere, and I was in on it.
My theory is that the muffin/cupcake divide was created by some especially clever, for children exactly like I was. Parents could say, "Well, it's kind of like a cupcake, but it's actually a muffin, so I can give this to Jimmy this morning." Then the children gleefully eat what they know is a glorified, pseudo-healthier cupcake. And to whomever it was who conceived this: well done.
posted by Meredith at 6:42 AM
4 Comments:
I don't know why, but I think that muffin sounds tastier...
-Joe
Muffin is a tastier sounding word, perhaps. But muffins are devious, and not to be trusted:
www.muffinfilms.com/
No, Meri, no. Don't lose faith. I did some research for you (ahh, summer vacation):
From your favorite (unreliable?) website, wikipedia:
Cupcakes evolved from muffins during the 19th century, and gained the name "cup" cakes or "measure" cakes because of the use of the practice of measuring the ingredients using a standard-sized cup instead of the previous practice of weighing the ingredients. The fact that these little cakes were baked in cup-shaped muffin baking containers gave double-meaning to the term "cup cake", and was probably the main factor for "cupcake" becoming the standard term in the US.
But what is the distinction? I knew it had something to do with ingredients, and I was right:
A cupcake is a small cake; a muffin is more closely related to quick breads, which can be unsweetened, or made with purees (banana breads, pumpkin breads etc).
There are going to be overlaps. Many commercial muffins are as sweet as cakes. And carrot cake can be close to the banana breads in moistness.
Also there are a number of cake making methods (including ones that depend entirely on beaten eggs for rising). Muffins, like their quick bread cousins, almost always use baking powder and/or baking soda as levening.
Muffins vs. Cupcakes = ::conspiracy::
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