Muffins vs. Cupcakes. Muffins win!

Credit: Serious Eats

Muffins are better than cupcakes. There… I said it. You heard me right. I still stand by my previous words and want to eschew elitism in gastronomy, but muffins are better than cupcakes. I have been going on this rant for awhile, but recently I dived deeper into the muffin vs. cupcake debate.

Cupcakes are trendy. Every corner seems to have or be getting a gourmet cupcake place. Both my undergrad city (Austin) and my current home (Washington, DC) have cupcake trucks. There is even a Food Network show oddly titled “Cupcake Wars”. I get it, I really do. Cupcakes are sweet, pleasant and often colorful treats. They remind us of childhood particularly happy moments like birthdays. Who doesn’t want that?

But what about the noble muffin! Delicious, versatile and often more notorious…I strongly believe the muffin is far more superior to cupcakes 9 times out of 10. Before I get to why, let’s explore the differences between the two.

Took me awhile to figure it out, a lot of other blogs were vague simply saying cupcakes are sweeter, softer and have frosting while muffins are heartier, denser and can be breakfast as well as dessert. I wanted to go deeper in part because I have had some sweet baked goods with frosting that clearly had the consistency of muffins. How do you tell one recipe from another?

Finally I found a few sites that described the ratios. Cupcakes have twice as much sugar, eggs and fat (butter, oil or shortening) than do muffins per cup of flour. After comparing recipes I felt fairly satisfied by this ration conclusion. Fairly satisfied until I checked my West Wing Muffins (Peanut Butter Chips and Apples) and my Chocolate Chip Times Two! Muffins recipes and found that their ratios were also that of cupcakes except for one thing: oatmeal! Being the overly nerdy guy I am, I came up with the following:

The Muffin-Cupcake Spectrum!

Acknowledging there might be a spectrum was not enough, though. I decided I had to go one more step and make a basic recipe muffin and a basic recipe cupcake. I added chocolate chips so not to make a bland batch of each. Here are my final observations.

Muffins: More versatile because of the extra starch allows it hold its shape and support bolder flavors. The reason we call things corn bread to blueberry to ginger bread to chocolate chip all muffins when baked in this form. With less sugar per cup of starch muffins are in fact typically less sweet meaning they can used as breakfast, dessert or adapted to be dinner roll replacement. Aesthetically they hold their shape better thanks to the additional starch, which I personally like a lot.

Cupcakes: Cake, cake, cake! If you want the childhood nostalgia or looking for a sugary treat I’ll give it to you, cupcakes play a good role. I never said they don’t have their place and it definitely is nice how soft, moist and delicate they can be. Cupcakes done well are worth at least some of the hype. Lesson learned: the paper or foil cupcake liner is not just aesthetic. They serve an important role. Without the additional flour a cupcake is a PAIN to take out of the muffin tin as you can see from my deformed cupcake above.

________

Okay, I'm sure at least one person out there will argue cupcakes are better than muffins overall. Send me your arguments! I will keep my mind and my stomach open.