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What’s The Difference Between “Cup Cake” And “Cupcake?”

It’s National Cupcake Lover’s Day

  • Cupcake liners do more than make it easy to remove them from the pan. Traditionally, sides of tins are greased for easy removal, but also floured because the batter needs to have something to cling to. A cupcake liner takes care of both.
  • The World’s Largest Cupcake record now belongs to Georgetown Cupcake at Georgetown Cupcake’s national headquarters in Sterling, Virginia. On November 2, 2011, the bakery created a cupcake weighing 2,594 lbs, according to Guinness World Records.
  • The first mention of a cupcake recipe goes as far back as 1796. Amelia Simms wrote a recipe in “American Cookery” which referenced, “a cake to be baked in small cups”.
  • However, it wasn’t until 1828 that the actual word cupcake was used by Eliza Leslie in her cookbook “Seventy-five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats”.
  • Cupcakes were actually originally called “Number Cakes” or “1234 Cakes” because it was an easy way to remember portions…One cup of butter, two cups of sugar, three cups of flour, four eggs, one cup of milk, and one spoonful of soda.
  • Original cupcake recipes were not frosted, and usually were usually just flavored with spices or dried fruit.
  • Cupcakes gained popularity in 1919 when Hostess became mass producing them. But they weren’t the cream filled, frosted kind we all know until the 1950’s.
  • Cupcakes started gaining popularity in the early 2000’s when NYC shops like Magnolia Bakery were featured on Sex and the City.
  • The record for eating the most cupcakes in the shortest time is 29 cupcakes in 30 seconds.
  • The first “cupcake only” bakery is Sprinkles Cupcakes, opened in 2005. They make over 50,000 cupcakes a day from 22 locations.
  • Apparently 13% of brides decide to serve cupcakes at their wedding as opposed to the traditional wedding cake.
  • Hostess CupCakes, arguably the world’s most famous cupcake, were originally made in the 1950s. Instead of making full-sized cakes, the company decided to make cupcakes because they take less time to bake than cakes.
  • The Hostess CupCake with its signature frosting squiggle, was arguably the first mass produced cupcake in 1919. But they weren’t the cream filled or frosted.
  • The Hostess conveyor oven can turn out 11,000 cupcakes an hour!
  • As of 2011, Hostess sells over 600 million CupCakes each year.
  • During the 1950s, the paper baking cup became very popular
  • Sprinkles is the first cupcake shop to debut a cupcake ATM, which could hold up to 350 cupcakes at one time.
  • An average adult living in the United States is believed to consume at least one cupcake per day.
  • An old English tradition says that if you put a fruit cupcake under your bed, you will dream of your future spouse.
  • In the early 19th century, there were two different uses for the name cup cake or cupcake.
    • In previous centuries, before muffin tins were widely available, the cakes were often baked in individual pottery cups, ramekins, or molds and took their name from the cups they were baked in. This is the use of the name that has remained, and the name of “cupcake” is now given to any small, round cake that is about the size of a teacup.
    • The other kind of “cup cake” referred to a cake whose ingredients were measured by volume, using a standard-sized cup, instead of being weighed. Recipes whose ingredients were measured using a standard-sized cup could also be baked in cups; however, they were more commonly baked in tins as layers or loaves.

Sources:

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