There seem to be two theories about the origin of recipes titled " cupcake " :
1.The name comes from the amount of ingredients used to make the cake (a cupful of flour, a cupful of butter, cupful of sugar etc.).
This is very similar to how pound cupcake designs was named. In fact, the recipes for cupcakes and pound cakes include pretty much the same ingredients and would have produced similar results. find your own cupcake recipes from scratch
2.These cakes were originally baked in cups.
Old cookbooks also sometimes mention baking cakes in small cups decorating cupcakes. These cups may very well have been earthenware tea cups or other small clay baking pans. These would easily accomodated baking level oven heat and produce individual-sized cakes. This is not the same thing as contemporary metal cupcake pans, enabling cooks to bake a dozen small cakes in one fell culinary swoop.
Which is true? Both! what about sprinkles cupcakes and wedding cupcakes? you can find all about cupcakes here :)
