Cake is a perfectly acceptable format. Cut yourself a slice, put in on a plate, eat it with a fork.
How is that not better than getting frosting all over your fingers while trying to remove a grease-soaked circle of paper from your food and holding a wet piece of cake in your hands while shoving something that’s bigger than your mouth at your own face?
Because it’s more fun to shove a cupcake in your mouth than forking a cake?
Moving to Cafe Society.
I think cupcakes are done to death, and generally I would prefer a nice slice of cake… BUT cupcakes are way easier to make, so consequently I make them way more frequently 
This.
And because it makes a gooey mess. Doubly-so if you have facial hair.
Mmmm…discovering icing in your mustache two hours later…
I prefer cake to frosting, so I’m incredibly not into the trend of having a two-inch cupcake with six inches of heavy, sickeningly sweet sugary frosting on top. Blech.
You are talking about creating a dirty plate and fork that you will need to clean later. Hands are no more difficult to clean than plates and forks. A cupcake is an efficient design that removes the plate/fork obstacle. And let’s remember, by the way, that a cupcake is not merely a vehicle for frosting. It is a cupcake after all. Don’t fall into the all-too-common trap of over-frosting your cupcakes (unless you design to lick the frosting as you would an ice-cream cone).
Sorry, but I disagree. I don’t think it’s easier to have to deal with twenty four little individual things than one big cake composed of (maybe) two layers.
True, but I can choose to wash that plate whenever I want. I have to wash my hands immediately after eating the cupcake, no matter how inconvenient that timing is. Or just lick my fingers and wipe them on my pants like I normally do, but let’s pretend I’m not gross.
And we haven’t even brought up the crumbs getting ground into the carpet…
Sure, YMMV and all that… I am a stickler for presentation and I always struggle to get a cake leveled and frosted evenly, such that the crumbs don’t poke through. I’m much better with a pastry bag.
Frost twice.
You know you’re allowed to eat your cupcake on a plate with a fork, right?
I prefer cupcakes because I’m a total idiot about serving size. I’m one of those for whom a unit is a serving. Therefore, I’m far healthier with a cupcake than with a cake. And cupcakes can be frozen and taken out one at a time, rather than eaten all at once or (on rare occasions when my willpower is great) going stale before you finish the whole cake.
That reminds me, I still have to frost the cupcakes I made last night.
I have the biggest sweet tooth in the world, so this cupcake hate is…confusing. Mess? Too much frosting? What are these things of which you speak? Oh well, more cupcakes for me! Everybody wins!
(Actually, I shouldn’t talk, because I am fairly picky about cake, or at least flavors and textures. Dense chocolate is the way to go, none of this angel food crap. And marble cake is an abomination.)
Cake may be easy for someone who is accustomed to making them, but beginners have trouble with keeping layers level, getting the layers out of the pan without breaking them, putting on crumb coats of icing (and then waiting for the coats to dry), and keeping the layers from sliding during the final icing. If you have rowdy dogs or small children, even having the layers spread out to cool can be risky.
Cupcakes can be kept in the tins while cooling and while traveling. The tins provide protection. It’s easier to put them up high while they’re cooling and they can slide around a bit in the trunk of your car with little danger. Even if you transfer them to a box or container for travel, they’re still harder to mangle than a cake.
If you want to use a fork, all a cupcake requires is a table, desk or other flat surface. Just pull down and flatten the handy paper cup and it collects the crumbs while you remove bites that are as small as you like. You can’t do that while sitting on a couch with no table or lap board, but life is not perfect.
Their superior portability lets you bring them safely to schools for birthday celebrations and to pot lucks or other buffet gatherings. And you’ll want to do this because what cupcakes provide above all other things is portion control. One diner, one cupcake. You can’t pretend that you thought the slice you took was one serving when, in fact, it was three. The little paper cups guide you and tell on you. If you take two cupcakes, the entire room knows that you’re taking two. If the cupcakes are all the same size, kids can relax their vigilance, secure in the knowledge that Bobby didn’t get a bigger slice.
And for the trip home, the tins (or boxes) are mostly clean. Cakes are more formal than cupcakes and take more skill to make. So they are a superior offering. Cupcakes are casual and less work in several ways.
Cupcakes have a much higher ratio of frosting than regular cake.
Frosting > Cake, therefore Cupcakes > Cake.
My 3-year-old thinks this as well, which is fine, because she’s 3.
I’m willing to admit that for feeding children at a party, cupcakes are fine, even superior. But I’m not a child, despite all my actions that suggest otherwise.
My big beef with cupcakes is that of all the trendy new cupcake places that opened up in the last few years, almost all of them rely soley on the pretty icing to sell them and the cupcake itself is a dry tasteless affair.
I’ve got a real problem with cupcakes too.
Ever since I read this thread a couple of hours ago, I’ve been jonesing for one and the damn cafeteria here at work doesn’t have any. Bastards.
Correction…jonesing again.
I make mini cupcakes. They’re a perfect size to pop in your mouth, and also cute.
/pop
Most kids don’t seem to care about having sticky hands or faces, either.
But can we at least agree to keep the cupcakes to a reasonable size? The built-in portion control that is why some of us like cupcakes doesn’t work when size inflation hits cupcakes.