The earliest extant description of what is now often called a cupcake was in 1796, when a recipe for "a light cake to bake in small cups" was written in American Cookery by Amelia Simmons.

While English fairy cakes vary in size more than American cupcakes, they are traditionally smaller and are rarely topped with elaborate frosting.

[6] A standard cupcake uses the same basic ingredients as standard-sized cakes: butter, sugar, eggs, and flour.

The cake batter used for cupcakes may be flavored or have other ingredients stirred in, such as raisins, berries, nuts, or chocolate chips.

Because their small size is more efficient for heat conduction, cupcakes bake much faster than a normal layered cake.

[citation needed] Originally, cupcakes were baked in heavy pottery cups.

These pans are most often made from metal, with or without a non-stick surface, and generally have six or twelve depressions or "cups".

In addition to paper, cupcake liners may be made from very thin aluminum foil or, in a reusable version, silicone rubber.

Because they can stand up on their own, foil and silicone liners can also be used on a flat baking sheet, which makes them popular among people who do not have a specialized muffin tin.

Some bakers use two or three thin paper liners, nested together, to simulate the strength of a single foil cup.

[21] The cupcone is a cupcake baked directly in an edible, flat-bottomed ice cream cone.

Declining sales, due to competition from locally owned mom-and-pop specialty stores as well as increased competition from grocery stores, caused a sharp decline in the company's prospects and stock price in 2013.

[29] The first person to bake and ice a set of cupcakes organized and colored to represent the elements of the periodic table was Ida Freund in 1908.