It's not a cupcake it's a fairy cake with more butter icing than is proportionate to the amount of cake you are eating

[CanISawItOff]

My rage about cupcakes fairy cakes really is disproportionate to the matter at hand but really, seriously, just STOP WITH IT!

They are twee shite aren't they? They are fucking fairy cakes ffs.

Surely calling them fairy cakes is more twee? A cupcake is a cake baked in a cup, rather than in a tin; that actually sounds logical. I guarantee fairies are not involved in the production of fairy cakes.

YADNBU. Far too much sickly icing and shockingly over-priced.

Give me a nice plain scone with a bit of butter and jam any day

Cupcakes aren't fairy cakes, they are bigger for a start. If you don't like them or think the icing on top is sickly sweet then you're eating the wrong ones. Properly made they are delicious.

YABU, it is a cupcake and it is not made properly unless the buttercream icing is larger than the sponge.

Aren't you meant to add the beaten egg to the sugar/ butter mix before adding flour?

There are different recipes for different types of cupcake. They don't always have buttercream on either, there are different types of frosting.

Leave the bastard

You can have your sweet little fairy cakes - cupcakes are so clearly superior, and as said have a straightforward and accurate name. I've never had a good "fairy cake. "

MIL declared adamantly the other day "I HATE CUPCAKES. They are revolting and are too sweet" .... and then proceeded to eat 6 of the cupcakes I'd made from my cupcake recipe book. She has also gone batshit crazy a bit loopy over having cupcakes instead of a big cake for dd's christening next week all of which I'll be baking by myself
I always thought a fairy cake was in a small paper case an a cupcake was in the big paper case?

I refuse to eat cupcakes on principle. I have never eaten one.

I attend a LOT of fetes as part of my job.
At every SINGLE one there is ALWAYS a cupcake stall that looks GORGEOUS but sells 2 cupcakes all afternoon, and is staffed by sad, wistful types who see their path to riches slipping away

...and I always wonder what happens to all the gorgeous works of art that are not bought

But it's just fundamentally half a victoria sponge divided up into twee paper cases and covered in buttercream

I love cupcakes.

They are a different cake to fairy cakes - why the anger at calling them somethig else?

The commercial ones are foul, even when they're from "Bessie's Sparkle Polka Dot Kitchen" (thanks, Wreck, for that lovely name). They're always made with some really rank margarine instead of proper unsalted butter, are too dry, and the icing is more like sweetened Savlon than anything else.

Magnolia Bakery, New York City, cupcakes beyond heaven.

I don't get this. For me the icing is the whole point of the cake. What's enjoyable about eating sponge?

Well in Ireland we always called them 'queen cakes' not fairy cakes . We sometimes made our queen cakes into butterfly buns, as mentioned above, by slicing off the tops, dividing them in two and angling them on top of the raspberry jam and butter-cream spread bun.

The only proper cup cake recipe I've seen is from the Hummingbird bakery book, which is a totally different mixture to the classic madeira mix commonly touted as a 'cup cake' recipe.

I'm curiously glad to find this thread because I hate cupcakes. I think there is something weird about them. As if they've been injected with something that turns sensible women into 50s throwbacks. There is a programme called Cupcake Wars where these utter utter loons over emote about their cakes.

I love cupcake wars .

See, I'm a sponge-liker, not an icing-liker. (Doesn't it make your teeth wince Catholicdad?)

Hence, cupcakes are not for me.

YANBU they are AWFUL! DD scrapes all the icing off the top - and in that lovely childlike way offers it back to the adult who proffered her the cake. They often look quite confused adn tell her thats the best bit - when she (to my great pride) gives them a lecture on too much icing and how it makes tou feel sick, and is not good for you (and if there is colouring in it) she gives them a lecture on E numbers as well. I love my DD!!

Her fave cupcake is Raspberry and Elderflower Cupcakes - with a teensie bit of icing as glue to stick a giant fresh raspberry on the top!

Yer welcome bluestocking.

Or it might be called Lulu and Daisy's Pink Formica Canteen.

I forget.

Or "Bunty's Bunting-Bedecked Beach Hut" with a lovely seaside theme.

I don't think YABU at all, OP, but cupcake lovers, please reveal the secret of divining which are the naice cupcakes and which ones are the sickly sugary nightmares? They're all so pretty. It would be tragic if none of them were edible. Haven't found an edible one myself, in spite of much devotion to cake eating.