to want people to stop saying cupcakes and call them fairy cakes instead?

[GetOrfMoiLand]

I don't know why I care really.

I just think that they should be called fairy cakes like days gone by

Saw Hummingbird cupcake book in a shop and thought should be Hummingbird fairy cakes.

Or is it just me?

No yeast,no bun.

'you put the mixture into a cake case...'

surely this is for ease of cleaning the tin afterwards?

Anyway They're all delicious no matter what you care to call them, fairycakes,buns,cupcakes etc.That's the important thing.

A small sponge fairy cake made from choc sponeg mix, and iced with choc icing is a chocolate bun!

Cup Cake is
a) too American
and
b) too Cath Kidston / Boden catalogue. So basically, interior design, rather than food.

Agree LTBR

Am hugely sad that my oven is broken and baking things is not an option.

I don't know what to eat for breakfast without being able to make bacon and cheese muffins!

'So basically, interior design, rather than food.'

Have not ever heard of decorating with cupcakes. In my neck of the woods we eat them.

To each their own I guess.

It's obvious that the models in the Boden catalogue don't eat the mounds of cakes that grace the tiered cake stands that surround them! (last summer's catalogue)

lol, I don't get the boden catalog. I picked up a waitrose catering catalog for ideas that was filled with victoria sponge cakes, but I don't recall any cupcakes.

Still stand by what I said about having a separate tray to make tiny fairy cakes - seems terribly posh. If I was to decorate around froofy models it would be with impossibly tiny, little cakes.

Then again, I don't see cupcakes (aside from previously mentioned starbucks/costa monstrosities) as too big either. Suspect this is another example of feeling like the entire country was built for someone smaller than me...

Fairy Cakes = little misshapen sponge cakes that were cut up to make what other posters are calling Butterfly Cakes

Cup Cakes = massive cakes that look better than they taste.

Has anyone tried M&S cupcakes? They were revoltingly sweet, even the DC would not eat them.

According to my copy of "Good Housekeeping cookery compendium" published 1952 there are recipies for:

Rainbow cup cakes: uses small cakes with "American frosting"
It also advises: "small cakes may be baked in patty tins. The tins should be well greased with melted butter...Special paper baking cases are sometime used...especially for cup cakes"
It also refers to "small iced cakes"
The word "bun" is used to refer to small sponge cakes in cases as well as gooey mixtures which are not sponge based (such as rock buns and chelsea buns).

My Bero home recipies book published in the 70's refers to "butterfly cakes" and "queen cakes" which are both standard sponge mix in a paper case BUT refers to "chocolate buns" which again, is standard sponge in a small paper case. It does not refer to cup cakes at all.

Neither of them mention fairy cakes...which is what I always referred to them as.

So...no consistency at all, even in recipie books.

I also add the Housekeeping book puts about 300 tonnes of icing on all the illustrated cakes, generally bright pink and very sickly looking. They also ice all their biscuits. Makes Mr Kipling fondant fanices look like muted health food. Ah, the fifties!

whatever you call them, I thought people might like to drool over my recent mumsnet prize, £100 of "cupcake tower"

Those are definitely cupcakes not fairy cakes.

fennel - you couldn't resist the chance to gloat, could you?

Have you had it yet? Did they taste any good, and are the butterflies painted or stuck on (as it were)?

Nosy, me? Yes, but then I would do that for less than £68

Mmmegoblindt - I LOVE the M and S cupcakes and I don't have a particularly sweet tooth. One of my colleagues left to have a baby a couple of weeks ago and I bought a selection of them. Had a carrot one on the day and a chocolate one the next day that just happened to be left over!! Gorgeous! The Fab Baking Boy cupcakes have been around for ever - used to put them in my DSs packed lunches. Cupcakes are not that much of a new thing but they do seem to have taken off recently. Some of them are ludicrously expensive for what they are - but very pretty.

Lakeland do a "cup cake carrier"

Huge amount of space and plastic to transport 6 cup cakes.

Yes, seems to be interchangable, as regards an individual size cake/bun.

For example a chocolate cake is "full size", a chocolate bun is individual.

I also don´t remember having fairy cakes when younger, only butterfly cakes & queen cakes or butterfly cakes which we didn´t "butterfly", but decorated with icing & 100s & 1000s.

No idea what we called them, though!

oh my god, that cupcake tower costs more than £2 for a tiny teeny little cake. That is completely ridiculous.

Well I don't like bun at all personally. Am not northern, but from Notts in the east Midlands. Is that why?

Fairy or cup is acceptable imho.

I bought an iced bun recently and the woman behind the counter called it a Swiss Finger.

Is that right? It doesn't sound very nice.

Also, what's the difference between a Chelsea Bun and a Belgian bun? Is the crushed sugar/icing thing and if so, which is which?

No I haven't had it yet, am waiting for a dd's birthday. It is a lot per cupcake isn't it?

I do tend to think of bun as being more "bready", so would probably still call the small ones cakes rather than buns.

Yep they were always iced fingers here because buns are small cakes! Bread with raisins in is a teacake too!

Puppymonkey what do you call a bread roll? Isn't it a cob where you are?

Regional variation is fab! Which is really why I don't like cupcakes with frosting on. I would if I was in the States I guess but here I'm happy with my buns (much more Carry On too! Ooh missus)

But why Swiss fingers?

Are Swiss fingers stickier than any other nationality?

And what about baps? In this household, apart from being Scary and another name for norks, they are flat white bread rolls with floury tops.

Iced fingers are sometimes called Swiss Buns where I am from (Devon)

A chelsea bun is more of a square shaped bready sticky buin with currants in. A belgian bun is similar, but is a squashed shape and has icing and a cherry on top.

150 posts on cakes! Only on MN.

Ooh yes, a bacon cob is my favoruite thing, Plugin. And yes, an iced bun is acceptable as it is a bready thing. Swiss don't even enter into it where I come from.

It's a minefield this isn't it?

It sure is, had a massive debate on fbook the other week about bread rolls/buns/baps/cobs/stotties and doubtlessly others I've forgotten!

My mate got all nostalgic about cobshops which we don't have here.