Monday Musing: The Difference Between Muffins and Cupcakes

At the insistence of a close friend, I've decided to post a Monday update going forward. This will include feedback, suggestions or, as is the case today, random musings. So without further ado, my first Monday Musing:

The chocolate chip muffin tops I made last night went over extremely well. Everyone liked them and I think I'm going to make muffin tops more often. If I were to re-make this recipe I think I would add a teaspoon of vanilla extract to the wet ingredients.

A friend of mine asked me to expound on the difference between a muffin and a cupcake. I immediately responded "icing." But it got me thinking that my answer was a bit simplistic and ignores grey areas such as muffins topped with melted chocolate or glazed with a sugar glazing. Clearly there must be a bright line where a cupcake ceases to be a cupcake and becomes a muffin or vice versa. In our profession we crave clear standards so after a bit of research, I propose the following standards:

Cupcake

• A cupcake shall not contain any flour but white flour, where white flour is defined as cake flour, all purpose flour, bleached flour or the like.
• A cupcake shall have a cake-like consistency. Moist, sweet and spongy.
• A cupcake shall have icing. A cupcake without icing is a muffin per se. Eligible icings include, but are not limited to cream cheese, buttercream, royal, ganache. A glaze shall not be considered an icing. Melted chocolate can be considered icing only if the underlying pastry is of a consistency that it would otherwise be considered a cupcake if icing were applied. If the pastry is otherwise a muffin then melted chocolate shall not be considered icing and the pastry shall be a muffin.

Muffin

• A muffin may be made of any type of flour, including but not limited to wheat, bran, corn, whole grain or others.
• A muffin may, but is not required to have a significantly heavier texture than a cupcake. If a questionable pastry has a light texture but is not iced, it is a muffin. If it has a light texture but is iced, it is a cupcake.
• A muffin shall be flavored. The flavoring need not be pronounced or exotic and can, but is not required to, include fruit, nuts, chocolate chips or other ingredients.