Martha Stewart's Cupcake Club

I am now officially a member of the Martha Stewart's Cupcake Club.

Each month a recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes
is chosen to be baked. Pictures are posted by the 15th of the month.

November's cupcake was Marshmallow Turkey Cupcakes (P.239), chosen by Rachel at Simple Girl. It's a bit late in the month for me to attempt them I think, however depending on how I feel on Saturday I may go and source the ingredients and actually do them.

December's cupcake is Fruitcakes with Meringue Mushrooms (P.249) chosen by Rebecca at beurrista. I'm really excited about these. I do need to get some nozzles for piping the meringue, something I have never done before. This will also be my first recipe from MSC that I will bake.

I have some cupcakes to bake for my daughter's school Children in Need event next Friday. I'm still deciding whether to attempt to make some Pudsey fondant toppers similar to these from Small Things Iced, or simply decorate them with buttercream.

When is a cupcake not a cupcake?

Yesterday was my 30th birthday. Now my lovely girlfriend bought me 2 giant cupcakes from Asda (with sparklers and fireworks I have to add). I love cake, so I was obviously grateful, but the size of them got me questioning whether they were actually cupcakes or not. So I went and found the definition of a cupcake, from the obvious source of Wikipedia: 'A cupcake (British English: fairy cake; Australian English: patty cake or cup cake) is a small cake designed to serve one person, frequently baked in a small, thin paper or aluminum cup. As with larger cakes, frosting and other cake decorations, such as sprinkles, are common on cupcakes.' So when it serves more than one person, it's no longer a cupcake. Even though it still looks and acts like one. Though does one person eating in it in more than one sitting count, so then it remains a cupcake. The other thing is fairy cakes are those little piddly things my Mum used to make, not the monsters I make. So are mine actually muffins and not cupcakes? I though muffins were cupcakes which hadn't got dressed yet, or were a bit on the ugly side. Is there a size guide somewhere. Well apparently so. According to Bake Me I'm Yours: Cup Cake there are 4 sizes. These are Very Little, Little, Not So Little & Not At All Little. Or petit fours, mini muffin, fairy cake and muffin sizes. Still doesn't really define the actual size. A lot of people argue that cupcakes here in the UK are fairy cakes, and in the US are muffins. So let's see what Martha Stewart says. Well she doesn't define it either, but size to line muffin tins. So what I guess is that a cupcake is actually just a really pretty muffin. It's muffin sized and has frosting, and is usually sweet. Giant cupcakes are huge cakes decorated to look like a cupcake, but not technically an actual cupcake. Still, they taste pretty good.