Page 306 - Cupcakes

temperature for up to 5 days or freeze them, wrapped in aluminum foil or in a

cake saver, for up to 6 months. Thaw the muffins overnight in the refrigerator
before serving.

What’s a Muffin? What’s a Cupcake?

The pans for baking muffins and cupcakes may be the same, but what pops
out of them can be surprisingly different. Muffins are a quick bread that’s
sometimes sweet, sometimes savory, and they are usually not frosted.
Although muffins contain an egg (sometimes two), the egg is not the sole
reason that muffins rise while baking. It is the leavening (baking powder
and soda) in the muffin’s batter that pushes them upward in the oven. And
because muffins contain so few eggs compared to cupcakes, they are less
spongy and cakey in texture.
Muffins are known by their pebbly tops and their characteristic bottom
and side crust. You achieve this by misting the bottom of a muffin pan with

vegetable oil and letting the muffins bake at a high heat (400°F) without
paper liners.
Cupcakes, on the other hand, are always sweet. They may be frosted with
a creamy buttercream or glazed with a sugar syrup. And because the
cupcake batter contains three or four eggs, the texture is soft and spongy and

the tops are smooth, all of which is possible because cupcakes bake more
slowly and evenly at 350°F. It’s up to you whether you place paper liners in
a cupcake pan before pouring in the batter. Liners make cleanup easier, and
also make transporting the cupcakes less messy.