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

I like home made butterfly cakes, with just a little buttercream icing. But these modern cup cakes are just too sickly - and, as you say, very unhealthy.

When did they 'cup cakes'? They were, and still are in this house, buns. Did anyone this side of the Atlantic grow up calling them 'cup cakes'?

Coolgran65 I dislike butter cream icing as well and the mounds of it that you could see on the tips of cupcakes was dreadful.

A nice chocolate muffin or slice of carrot cake might have as many calories as a cup cake but it would not have all that dreadful sweet fat spread on top.

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

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.

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'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! ??

thanks thatbags

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.

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

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.

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

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.

It was Nigella who decreed that cupcakes were sexy!

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

Madeira cake is a bit dry- one I avoid.

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

The topping is too sweet to eat! Horrible!

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.

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