Confession + Recipe = Confessipe?

(the impostors)



(deeeleeshus)

I have a confession: these are muffins. That's right, I made muffins, perfectly good muffins, and then decided I actually wanted cupcakes, so I iced them. Shocking, I know. But hear me out: what really IS the difference between muffins and cupcakes? I mean I know in general muffins can have things baked in them, like nuts or fruit, and are generally larger than cupcakes, but really, you COULD bake cupcakes with nuts in them and make them really big. In this case, I think the plain muffins were a little less crumbly-cakey than a cupcake would be, but I think the real difference between cupcakes and muffins is frosting. I'm pretty sure if you fed a naive test subject one of my frosted muffins, and told them it was a cupcake, what they would say would be "Mmmmm!" and not "This is no cupcake, this is a MUFFIN IMPOSTOR!"

And now, for side-by-side comparison: the muffin recipe I used and a basic cupcake recipe, both found online at either, recipezaar, allrecipes, epicurious, or cooks.com, I don't remember (oops). P.S. - I multiplied my muffin recipe by 3, because it makes 6 muffins, and the cupcake recipe makes 18.

Muffins...................................Cupcakes
3 cups flour.......................................3 cups flour
3/4 teaspoons salt...........................1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder............2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/8 cup of oil.....................................2/3 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar...................................1 3/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups milk................................1 1/4 cups milk
1 1/2 eggs.........................................2 eggs
...........................................................1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Not identical twins, but maybe sisters, right? Clearly the muffins aren't as sweet as the cupcakes, but once you slap that frosting on top, they're really not lacking in sweetness. In case you were wondering about the recipe instructions, both follow the usual quickbread formula: you combine the dry ingredients (flour, salt, and baking powder) in one bowl, the wet ingredients (fat, sugar, milk, eggs, and vanilla) in another, beat the wet ones well, then slowly add the dry. The muffins bake at 400, and the cupcakes at 350, both for ~20 minutes.