The curse of the cup-cake - why not leave good cakes naked?

I totally agree with you. The world has gone mad. I blame it all on that stupid 'Bake-off' programme.

There's nothing wrong with a little bit of frosting or icing, it's when there is a great big mountain of gunk on the top that it puts me off. Less is more when it comes to cup cake topping.

They look nice but I have to scrape it off before eating it. They are works of art and not food!

Well to me that topping on cupcakes tastes far better than the bland bit of cake under it, and at about £2:50 a throw I have only had about 4 in my life so it isn't going to kill me.

The topping is too sweet to eat! Horrible!

Too much is too sweet even for me.Mind you, I put a dollop of cream on Madeira cake.

Madeira cake is a bit dry- one I avoid.

The while cupcake thing really irritates me. We used to have fairy cakes which we decorated subtly with a touch of icing (not frosting- that's American for icing), of a blob of buttercream if we were turning them into butterfly cakes. Or we left them alone. Cupcakes were chocolate fairy cakes with a quarter inch thick chocolate fudge icing.
Then someone decides to reinvent fairy cakes, add mountains of gunk, and call them cupcakes. And everyone acts as if they've never come across individual, iced fairy cakes before.

Whole, not while. Or, not of. Stupid iPhone.

I'd say it's not only about cakes- far too much fancy food around. Give me a plate of good wholesome food made with quality products- and i'm happy.

I don't like cup cakes- as you have all said too much sugar and they are far too sweet for me. I'm a good solid fruit cake lover. |Looking forward to a slice of my un-iced Christmas Cake - decorated with nuts only.

Hear, hear! merseymog. I totally agree. I'm perfecting my muffin-making technique in protest. No decorations, just cake, and good cake at that.

I'd never heard of cupcakes or fairy cakes until I was an adult. As a child in Yorkshire and Lancashire, I only ever heard small cakes called buns whether they were 'stand alone' yeasted types or sponge cake types made in bun cases.

It was Nigella who decreed that cupcakes were sexy!

I only bake plain fairy cakes as OH won't eat them any other way, I used to do a bit of icing and sprinkles when the kids were small but otherwise plain and slightly overdone... he loves them like that.

I do agree about cupcakes I find them oversweet and cloy (is that a word?) in my mouth.

The word cloy is perfect to describe the excess sweetness, tanith. Full marks for that

I make a lot of cupcakes - mostly for selling at GS's school bake sales or to raise funds for his footie team, and the more elaborate they are, the better they sell. I enjoy fiddling about with piping and the like. I never buy ready made frosting, it's generally horrible. However, when it comes down to it, the more icing there is on them the more disinclined i am to want to eat them. I like butterfly cakes, or just fairy cakes with chocolate chips and no icing.

It's not just the quantity of icing that scares me off, it's the glow-in-the-dark colours!

Since I bought a mini cupcake baker I've been making quite a few of them. I put what I think is quite a dollop of icing on them, but it's nothing like the quantity you get on shop ones.

thanks thatbags

I've never been keen on butter cream and when it's so sickly sweet I think it's disgusting. However, a little bit of lemon icing on a lemon drizzle cake is perfection! ??

Saw an item on TV recently about edible glitter just being the normal metallic stuff much to the horror of some professional bakers who had been using it! Not a fan of the cupcake - thanks Tanith - cloying perfectly sums it up for me.

I love madeira cake. I once ate a whole one with my lunch. There was no one else in the house so no one knows.

I've never eaten a modern cupcake. Can't abide butter cream, a wee bun with a touch of water icing is just fine.