A Little Cupcake History

The "Cupcake" originated in 19th Century America. Though it was a small cake, it was not called a Cupcake as it is commonly known as today. The name itself originated from the method used to make them, ingredients were measured in cups instead of weighed. This was a revolutionary idea as it saved a tremendous amount of time in the kitchen.

Whether it was a "cup," "measure" or "number" cake, the shift to measuring from weighing was indeed a significant one. Small cups including tea cups were also used to measure the ingreadients, this also contributed to the name "Cup (cake)".

The cups were for convenience because hearth ovens took an extremely long time to bake a large cake -- and early cakes, were substantially bigger than cakes that are baked today -- and burning was common. Gem pans, early muffin tins, were common in households around the turn of the 20th Century and cupcakes were then baked in those.

At the time of it's invention Cupcakes were commonly know as "number" cakes because of a mnemonic device for remembering the recipe: One cup of butter, two cups of sugar, three cups of flour and four eggs plus one cup of milk and one spoonful of soda.

The formula became known as the one-two-three-four cake, and today's cupcakes are mostly still made with similar traditional cake ingredients.