Cupcake is an English word for a small pastry, usually baked in a small paper or aluminum container. It can be decorated in different ways. The first cupcake recipe found in Eliza Leslie's cookbook from 1828, though this wasn't the first mention of cupcakes.
Eliza Leslie used the cup size in her cupcake recipes and wrote: "The cups should hold about half a pint". This explains the English name "cup cake". The cupcakes were initially baked in tin molds, but later in a cup or a ramquin. Cupcakes have a sweet taste and differ in that respect from the otherwise similar muffins that also have savory variants. The Mug cake consists of almost the same ingredients but is baked in a mug in the microwave. This cake tin is believed to have existed from about 2008 and is particularly popular in the US.