A Cupcake Story

I am a recent fan of Cupcakes. And boy, is the tiny singleserve variety causing a storm (but for some reason, Cupcakes dont seem very Poular in India, don't you think?).

Banana cupcakes (top two), Butter Pecan cupcake (right corner), chocolate muffins (left corner)

Anyway, this post started out as a single (blogpost) attempt to write what I think about cupcakes, but I ended up making more than a fair share of cupcakes in the past few days. Hence this post is dedicated only to cupcakes by and large and individual  experiments are coming up soon(really soon this time, promise!)Try searching Google images for Cupcakes and the images that turn up .... well I have no words (I mean, the pics will make you drool), and it amazes me how creative people get to take one attractive picture of an essentially same product. In New York, the demand for cupcakes has become what the author of the article called "the great American cupcake pandemic" - The Great Cupcake Wars - From the May 2011 issue of Inc. magazine.

Stawberry Cheescake Cupcakes

Cupcakes are essentially cake batters that are baked in 'cups'-ie smaller sizes, and seem to be of American Origin (Wikipedia article - "The first mention of the cupcake can be traced as far back as 1796, when a recipe notation of “a cake to be baked in small cups” was written in “American Cookery” by Amelia Simms" but please correct me if I am wrong). Dont confuse them with muffins - Muffins warrant another post - they are quite different in the way they are made, even if they are largely similar in their baking. And muffins are of British origin.

Chocolate chip muffins

More on cupcakes I made, coming soon!