To HATE the word cupcake?!

[cupofteaandasliceofcake]

What's with the use of the word 'cupcake' everywhere now?! It's not a cupcake. It's a fecking bun. With fancy icing on it.
Sorry, just needed to get that off my chest!

Sponge cakes don't include fat!

WHAT!

Buns tend to have yeast in, like a Chelsea or Belgian buns.

But why has the cupcake usurped the fairy cake? We were all quite happy with our humble fairy cakes (btw my Mum calls them Queen cakes) till these fat, showy, brightly coloured interlopers waddled over.

YANBU - fairy cakes or buns for me (from oop north too). I recently asked for a fairy cake in a coffee shop and the assistant had no idea what I meant.'Do you mean a cupcake?' No I do not fecking mean a cupcake. If I wanted my son to eat his bodyweight in icing I would let him join in my once a month pmt buttercream frenzy ask for a blardy cupcake!

Considers going into Mothercare with a permanent marker and 'correcting' any clothing that has cupcake written on it

There maybe truth in that marysbeard a lot of my hatred stems from the whole hysterical culture and the fact that once normal, decent level headed friends now gush about fucking sponge. The whole competitive nature of it riles me, the colours rile me, the fact they make you fat riles me and the idea that simply saying 'I'm not keen myself' tends to provoke ardent cupcakers into a holier than thou mission to convert me... I admit, all that has made me dispreportionately anti-cupcake.

I've even been told "Your poor kids, you've banned cupcakes" and whilst its true that I have, my children don't suffer, we make proper cakes, biscuits and bread.

Also it seems that every mum I know who is looking to work from home starts with a fucking cupcake business, and then expects me to buy them or like every damn photo they upload to FB.

Gosh, I'm surprising myself at just how much I loathe the stupid little things. IABU and I don't care.

at cupcakes being the grey squirrel of the cake world. TBH though I think that honour goes to muffins, which are definitely an invasive American cake / bun / baked thingumabob species edging out the native fairy cake.

You can make a brilliant, fatless sponge cake. My dm (whose cake-making skills were legendary) passed her recipe down to me. It involves creaming the eggs and sugar and then folding the flour in. Makes a delicious, light sponge. But sponge it definitely is!

Sponge cakes do contain fat. A Nigella chocolate sponge is about 70% :) There is such a thing as a butterless sponge though, just as there is an yolk free omelette...

I think cupcake is an American term. We always called them Fairy cakes. But yes, I hate the word cupcake. A friend bought me a mug with cupcakes on it. I get it out whenever she comes round, with a shudder.

"But why has the cupcake usurped the fairy cake? We were all quite happy with our humble fairy cakes"

Couldn't agree more :)

Wikipedia seems quite informative about the subtleties and history!

Sounds like you are a bit jealous and bitter about women having cupcake businesses, OP. I've seen that attitude on here "Oh you aren't a proper businesswoman like me as you are only make a few cakes". Not doing proper (dull) things like accountancy...

If you don't like someone's content on Facebook, hide or defriend them.

I know someone who makes cupcakes who is an absolute genius. There is a real skill to decorating cakes very well. I know because I can't do it - can make them but only do very simple icing, if at all.

Cupcakes can make you fat but so can all cakes, all food eaten to excess (apart from lettuce perhaps).

I just think it's a funny thing to be bothered about.

• valiumredhead Wed 19-Sep-12 12:50:09

A Victoria sponge has tons of fat in it*

No, it is not a Victoria Sponge, it is a Victoria Sandwich - it is not calleda sponge, it is not a sponge.
its name is not Sponge, it is Sandwich.

people who call it Victoria Sponge are wrong. (no, don't quote Mary Berry or Delia, they are wrong)
It is a Victoria Sandwich. It has equal parts fat, sugar, eggs and flour and is a cremaed cake

full stop.

I have started threads on this subject before, don't make me come after you, valium

Cupcakes are yuck. Even when from proper cake shops. Blah sponge and sickly icing. I much prefer layer cakes. Or fairy cakes like my mother used to make - teeny sponge cakes with lemon icing (royal icing, not buttercream) on the top.

OTheHugeManatee - Victoria Sandwiches and Pound cakes are not sponges.

Pound cakes are pound cakes or fruit cakes.

you are right in your sponges having no fat in but the texture is from the air.

and to everyone else who replied after Manatee - no, sponges do not contain fat.

sponges have no fat.

creamed cakes have fat.

A bit of anti-Americanism thrown in then. Cupcakes came in because you can easily eat two fairy cakes, they are pretty insubstantial. And because they look amazing, though as I said, I don't like too much icing. You don't have to make them with a lot of icing though!

Because they are very very easy to get right every time yet look more impressive than a fairy cake, like you have made a lot more effort than with a fairy cake. That is why people like them.

They're horrid dry little fairy cakes with 300 times their own weight of sickly butter icing.

I like real cake, not uppity little feckers covered in stupid butterflies, glitter and those rock hard icing ornaments that play havoc with your bridgework.

I'm sorry, but there is such a thing as a fat-free sponge. Fact.

But no, I'm not bitter, let alone jealous, of people with cupcake businesses. I just think that many of them are less than businesslike.

I do, however, think that the demise of decent, traditional cake is something worth bothering about even if, admittedly, it comes lower down the list than world peace and the abolition of poverty and suffering.

Yes, yes you go ahead and argue with Mary and Delia, after all you know best nickel

To be fair I can completely understand why someone would hate the Cupcake Hysteria. It's not the cakes themselves, they're just cakes (although often overpriced), it's the tweeness that comes with it. The kind of Cath Kidstony glorification of 1950's housewife-ishness. Everything these day has a picture of a blimmin' cupcake on it. It does get trés dull.

In Holland in the 17th century there was a phenomenon called Tulip Mania when people went crazy for tulips, tulips, tulips. Prices rose, people grew more crazed, then they got bored of tulips.

Maybe that will happen with cupcakes. In a couple of years, cupcakes will be but a sugary memory and we'll all be crazy for Pavlova or something. Mmmm, Pavlova Mania I could definitely get on board with

In yorkshire they are buns! Butterfly buns, cherry buns, plain buns, whatever! A rock cake is a rock cake! A bread roll is a bread roll (or a teacake, or if it has currants it is a currant teacake). A bread roll might be called a bun if has icing on (an iced bun).

I'm off to bake a dozen buns!

Delia has not got any background in cookery theory.
she is not trained in the subject, she just happens to cook for a living.

and Mary Berry is also wrong.
in her Complete Cook Book she does call it a Victoria Sandwich.

Pandemonia - all sponges are fat free (unless you count the eggs) becaue they are fluffy because of the way they are mixed.

so nur