By: Celina Khorma

One day, Stef Pollack, recipe developer and creator of the Cupcake Project, a blog and Instagram account with almost one million followers, decided to test out a theory in the pastry world. She baked apple cupcakes, but slyly topped one batch with frosting and the other with a crumble. When she presented them to her friends, she announced that she'd made apple cupcakes and muffins, and just as she predicted, no one detected the conspiracy. “They were like ‘oh, ok great,’” she recalls. “Nobody noticed that both were actually cupcakes, just with different toppings."

 

Enter the debate that’s haunted health nuts and sweet tooths alike for years. Muffins look like cupcakes, talk like cupcakes and even have an ingredient list on par with cupcakes, but unlike them, have fallen victim to the “health halo” effect and are perceived as the more wholesome treat –– but is that really true? And, if it isn’t, does that mean muffins are just cupcakes in disguise?

 

Mandy Maxwell, the former pastry and sous chef of three Michelin star NYC restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, who also worked at Per Se and other Thomas Keller restaurant franchises, thinks so. She says one argument people use to distinguish them from one another, just as Pollack speculated, is that cupcakes are topped with frosting, while muffins are not. That’s also lent people to believe that they’re more healthful, but Maxwell thinks this reasoning is shortsighted. She says that muffins also come with their share of ‘naughty’ toppings, but they’re simply just less conspicuous.

 

“The typical cupcake frosting is buttercream, which is butter and sugar creamed together," she says. "But muffins, especially blueberry, usually have a crumble on top, and that’s also butter and sugar mixed together, but in a different way.” Glazes, she adds, are commonly drizzled atop of muffins too, and are also made with the same ingredients.

 

Another argument is that each use different ingredient ratios and flour types which, in turn, yield different end products and nutritional profiles. Lourdes Castro, a registered dietitian, cookbook author and Food Science professor at New York University, says muffins use more flour than cupcakes, which may even make them more caloric. "There's going to be a healthier aspect if you're using whole wheat, but when you look at the numbers it's not as healthy as people perceive them to be," she says. "Muffins would probably have even higher calories than a cupcake, but in the form of a complex carbohydrate versus a simple carb or a sugar."

 

Further, Maxwell says that cupcakes are prepared with pastry flour to yield a fluffy texture. Muffins, in turn, use all-purpose flour for a denser one, which, along with the use of other ingredients, like oats, may make them taste similar to fibrous foods that are connoted as healthy. But, again, she says this difference is minute, and possibly even unnoticeable. “When you look at home recipes for cupcakes, all call for all-purpose because no one has all these different type of flours,” she says. “And it really takes a trained palate to even notice those small differences.”

 

In addition to flour type, Maxwell says mixing methods may also give rise to textural differences. Cupcakes are prepared with the creaming method, which, according to Advanced Bread and Pastry By Michel Suas, is the technique of mixing a solid fat and sugar together first, then adding eggs and dry ingredients after. Muffins, in turn, are made with the blending method, the technique of mixing dry ingredients together, then adding liquid ones, like melted butter or eggs, into the bowl after.

 

“The foundation of the baking world is how you mix things together. And that changes your product drastically because you’re using all of the same ingredients,” Maxwell says. However, she still feels that that could be an “overgeneralization.” Not all cupcakes are prepared via the creaming method and not all muffins are prepared via the blending method, she says, adding that a desired texture can be achieved in ways beyond just mixing method.

 

But if the two treats are so similar, both aesthetically and compositionally, then why were muffins the one to acquire a health halo?

 

According to The Tastemakers: Why We're Crazy for Cupcakes but Fed Up with Fondue by David Sax, muffins were marketed as a fibrous food in the 1970s when high-fiber diets were all the rage. Containing ingredients like bran, blueberry or oat, as well as the convenient ability to also curb a sweet tooth, it didn’t take long for them to become the in health food. “Muffins were high in fiber, high in carbs, so people just took it and ran with it,” Castro says. “And the healthiness of it kind of stuck around.”

 

It made sense, too. Though muffins, like cupcakes, contain ingredients scorned for being ‘bad,’ they’re also composed of the ‘good’ heart-healthy ones, and are typically flavored with things like nuts and fruit. That meant that you’d still be reaping benefits, but it was overlooked that that would be done almost counterproductively so. According to the USDA National Nutrient Database, depending on size, even blueberry muffins may range from 375-630 calories, and contain anywhere between 16-27 grams of fat.

 

Castro says the health halo has actually done muffins more harm than good, whereas the opposite applies with cupcakes. “People have already decided that a cupcake is dessert, so they’ve made mini ones so that portion sizes aren’t so big,” she says, adding that muffins, instead, are getting larger. “I’ve seen muffins that are three times the size of cupcakes because people think they can get away with it.”

 

Maxwell blames the health halo on the fact that muffins are more often eaten as a breakfast food which is typically connoted as the most healthful meal of the day. Cupcakes, in turn, are an afternoon indulgence, more likened to dessert. “By definition, a muffin is not healthy,” she says. “Just like by definition cupcakes are not healthy. It's all about perception.”

 

Pollack agrees, and adds that marketing contributes to the healthful facade. “People have this concept where they’re like, ‘let’s have dessert for breakfast,’ so they’re gonna call it a muffin,” she says, stating that toppings like fruit only ease the guilt. “You can kind of convince yourself it’s healthier by doing that.”

 

An authentic healthy muffin, however, doesn’t have to be a far-off myth or fantasy. Any treat can be made wholesome by using the right ingredients, and Castro says that you can “tweak the formula” to make muffins that won’t rank in hundreds of empty calories. “You can pack in healthy grains and fiber, and there nut butters you can use for a good source of healthy fats. It can even be a good source of protein.” Pollack also says that you can achieve a more healthful variation of a regular muffin by simply reducing the sugar and butter content of any recipe.

 

“If you want to make a healthy muffin, you can,” Maxwell echoes. “Also, if you wanted to make a healthy cupcake, you could theoretically make a healthy cupcake. But, it has to be an objective.”

 

Still, Maxwell, Castro and Pollack all say they are certain of one thing –– to each of them, muffins are, indeed, just cupcakes in disguise.