40 Fun Facts About Cupcakes

Which phone operating system called version 1.5 Cupcake, starting a decade of dessert-themed names?

Android began its sweet streak with Cupcake in April 2009, and Donut followed that September. The dessert names lasted until Android 10 dropped them in 2019.

Which classroom staple did Cambridge chemistry lecturer Ida Freund recreate in iced cakes for her students?

The periodic table became a board of iced cakes, each showing an element's name and atomic weight. Freund was the first woman to be a university chemistry lecturer in Britain.

The vanilla in a classic cupcake comes from the seed pods of which type of flowering plant?

An orchid is the source: vanilla comes from the seed pods of an orchid from Mexico and Central America. Today the best-known crop comes from Madagascar and its neighbouring islands in the Indian Ocean.

Which snack brand's chocolate cupcake has worn a white icing squiggle across its top since 1950?

Hostess added the squiggle, along with a creme filling, to set its cupcake apart from rival brands. First sold in 1919, it has been called the first commercially produced cupcake.

In which CBS sitcom do diner waitresses Max and Caroline save up to open a cupcake business?

2 Broke Girls ran for six seasons from 2011, with Kat Dennings as Max and Beth Behrs as Caroline, a billionaire's daughter left penniless by her father's Ponzi scheme.

Which HBO series brought fame to Magnolia Bakery and its cupcakes in New York's West Village?

Sex and the City gave the bakery national publicity just as cupcake-only bakeries were becoming a trend in the early 2000s. The first Magnolia had opened on Bleecker Street in 1996.

Which gas, released when baking powder reacts in wet batter, makes cupcakes rise in the oven?

Carbon dioxide bubbles form when the powder's acid and carbonate meet moisture, then expand in the heat to lift the crumb. Pharmacist Alfred Bird devised an early baking powder in 1843.

What do the British call their version of a cupcake, usually smaller and more plainly iced?

Fairy cake is the British name, and the dainty size fits it: these bakes are rarely piled with elaborate frosting. In Ireland the same treat is often simply called a bun.

The Beverly Hills bakery Sprinkles sold cupcakes around the clock from which kind of machine?

An ATM for cupcakes was the idea: the chain's Cupcake ATMs were vending machines that dispensed cupcakes on demand at any hour. Sprinkles opened in 2005 as a bakery devoted solely to cupcakes.

Fa gao, a steamed cupcake-like 'prosperity cake' whose top splits open, is most commonly eaten at which festival?

Chinese New Year is its big moment, because the name puns on words for prosperity and expanding. A wider split on top, called a smile by the Hakka, is said to promise better fortune.

In early cookbooks, a 'cup cake' could be any cake whose ingredients were measured how?

By volume: a standard cup replaced the scales, which set a 'cup cake' apart from a weighed pound cake. Such recipes were more often baked as layers or loaves than in little cups.

In a 1-2-3-4 cake, the 'cup cake' formula ending in four eggs, which ingredient takes three cups?

Flour takes the three: one cup of butter, two of sugar, three of flour and four eggs. The plain yellow cake uses about half the butter and eggs of a pound cake, so it was cheaper to make.

Which author's 1828 cookbook Seventy-five Receipts has the earliest known use of the word cupcake?

Eliza Leslie based this first book on notes from her cooking-class recipes, and it proved a hit, running through eleven editions by 1839.

Which edible, flat-bottomed holder do some bakers pour cupcake batter into before baking?

An ice cream cone works as an edible baking cup: the batter goes straight into the cone, and icing is added after baking. The result is sometimes called a cupcone.

Which magician, later the star of Netflix's Magic for Humans, was the original host of Cupcake Wars?

Justin Willman presented the baking contest from 2009 to 2013, when four teams fought through three rounds for $10,000. Jonathan Bennett took over for the later seasons.

Which insect names the cupcake whose sliced-off top is halved and set back into the filling?

Butterfly cakes get their look when the two halves of the top are set into icing or jam like a pair of wings. A dusting of icing sugar or sprinkles usually finishes them.

What do bakers call a ball of crumbled sponge and icing, dipped in chocolate and served on a stick?

A cake pop is the stick-mounted version of a treat that began as a thrifty way to use up leftover or stale cake. The icing gives it a soft, dough-like centre.

Which sweetener is creamed with butter to make simple American buttercream for topping cupcakes?

Powdered sugar and butter are all it takes, which makes the American style quicker and easier than other buttercreams. Swiss and Italian versions start from a meringue instead.

Which French icing, a rich cupcake topping, is made by combining melted chocolate with cream?

Ganache is an emulsion of chocolate and cream that can serve as a glaze, an icing or a filling. Some European versions swap the cream for softened butter.

The white frosting on carrot cake and carrot cupcakes is typically made with which dairy product?

Cream cheese gives the icing its tang, and modern British and American recipes typically feature it. The carrots themselves are mixed straight into the spiced batter.

Which cupcake flavor, a Waldorf-Astoria dessert since the 1920s, was revived by the film Steel Magnolias?

Red velvet regained its popularity after the 1989 film featured the cake in a scene. Under the red colouring it is a mild cocoa cake made with buttermilk or vinegar.

In Boston and Philadelphia, the chocolate sprinkles on a frosted cupcake are most often called what?

Jimmies is the regional word, and the Just Born candy company of Pennsylvania claims it invented the product and named it after an employee.

Which baking brand launched Funfetti, a white cake mix with rainbow sprinkles in the batter, in 1989?

Pillsbury coined the name by blending fun and confetti: the sprinkles melt in the oven into dots of bright colour that resemble confetti.

Which nationality names the alkali-treated cocoa that makes chocolate cupcakes darker and less bitter?

Dutch process cocoa goes back to chocolate maker Coenraad van Houten in the early 19th century. His father developed the press that removes fat from cocoa beans, the basis of cocoa powder.

The cacao tree behind every chocolate cupcake has the genus name Theobroma, which means what in Greek?

Food of the gods is the meaning, from the Greek theos and broma. Linnaeus coined the name in 1753, borrowing cacao from the Spanish form of a Nahuatl word.

German chocolate cake, a cupcake favorite topped with coconut-pecan frosting, originated in which US state?

Texas, not Germany: the recipe came out of Dallas in the 1950s. It is named after Samuel German, who had developed a sweet baking chocolate for the Baker's company a century earlier.

Which American snack cake hides cream-filled chocolate cake under pink marshmallow and coconut flakes?

Sno Balls date from 1947 and are usually pink, though holidays bring green, blue and other colours. In Britain, Tunnock's sells a similar coconut-covered Snowball.

A machine built to fill which sponge snack inspired the creme centre of America's squiggle-topped cupcake?

Twinkies got the filling injector first, and Doc Rice, tasked with improving the cupcake, saw the same machine could add a vanilla creme centre. His updated version arrived in 1950.

Which TV show's 2005 short Lazy Sunday has two comedians eat Magnolia cupcakes before a Narnia matinee?

Saturday Night Live aired the short in December 2005, with Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell rapping about their snack run. They wrote the song in one night with two Lonely Island colleagues.

Which former investment banker founded Sprinkles in Beverly Hills and judged Food Network's Cupcake Wars?

Candace Nelson went to pastry school in San Francisco after leaving finance, then sat on the show's judging panel from 2009 to 2013. She sold the cupcake chain to a private equity group in 2012.

Which bakery, opened by two sisters in 2008, became the setting of a TLC reality series?

Georgetown Cupcake was started by sisters Katherine Berman and Sophie LaMontagne with their life savings and a small business loan. TLC filmed them in 2010 for its series DC Cupcakes.

Which New York cupcake chain, once America's largest and listed on Nasdaq, shut every store in July 2014?

Crumbs Bake Shop grew from one Upper West Side store in 2003 to 79 locations before its stock was delisted. It reopened after a three-month shutdown, then closed for good in December 2016.

Besides cupcakes, which classic dessert of the American South is New York's Magnolia Bakery best known for?

Banana pudding, a layered dish of custard, vanilla wafers and sliced bananas, is the bakery's other signature. The wafers soften as they soak up the custard.

Which animal gets a cupcake in the title of Laura Numeroff's follow-up to If You Give a Mouse a Cookie?

A cat gets the cupcake in the 2008 picture book illustrated by Felicia Bond. The same series also hands a pig a pancake, a moose a muffin and a dog a donut.

National Chocolate Cupcake Day is marked in the United States on the 18th of which month?

October 18 is the date, giving the chocolate version its own day ahead of National Vanilla Cupcake Day on November 10 and the all-flavours National Cupcake Day on December 15.

In sports slang, what kind of team is labelled a 'cupcake' when it appears on another team's schedule?

An easy opponent is the meaning: a cupcake is an unskilled team expected to lose to a stronger side. The same slang has also been used for a weak man and as a term of endearment.

In Mexico, Marinela sells its squiggle-topped chocolate cupcake under the Spanish name of which bird?

Penguins, or Pingüinos in Spanish, is the name used in Mexico and by extension the rest of Latin America. Marinela is the pastry division of the bread-making giant Bimbo.

Which American 3D-printer maker, founded in 2009, sold a do-it-yourself kit machine called the Cupcake CNC?

MakerBot shipped the Cupcake CNC as a kit from April 2009, with assembly compared to building IKEA furniture. The company also founded Thingiverse, the online library of printable designs.

A mug cake, the cupcake cousin mixed and cooked in a mug, is usually made in which appliance?

A microwave does the job, which is why the recipe often takes under five minutes from start to finish. The idea spread through internet cooking forums and mailing lists.

Which picture-book heroine comes down with a strange illness after eating too many cupcakes?

Pinkalicious cannot stop eating pink cupcakes and comes down with Pinkititis. Victoria Kann based the books on her two daughters and their love of the colour pink.