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Hi, my name is Amanda Oakleaf. I am owner, head baker and decorator of Amanda Oakleaf
cakes in Winthrop, Massachusetts, where we do cupcakes, custom cakes, wedding cakes,
birthday cakes, anything you can think of we can make it into a cake. And today, I will
be talking to you about baking cupcakes. The history of the cupcake can be attributed to
two things. The first is that back in the eighteen hundreds before they had the modern
oven, cupcakes were originally baked in ceramic teacups or ramekins, so individual cups of
cake, because the ovens were not advanced enough to bake a full-sized cake without burning.
The second being about the same time, they switched from weighing ingredients in pounds
and ounces to measuring with measuring cups in a method that was called the one two three
four method, which is one cup of buter, two cups of sugar, three cups of flour and four
eggs. And that was their basic recipe, which also evolved from the weighing version, which
is the pound cake, which is a pound of sugar a pound of flour. So that kind of derived
from there. Once the modern ovens advanced, then we had the use of muffin tins or cupcake
pans where you can bake a dozen at once, and the ovens bake more evenly. People have been
baking cupcakes since the middle of twentieth century. They've been popular for kids' birthdays
and weddings and stuff but the real craze probably started in the last twenty years
or so with the gourmet cupcake, where the cupcake tastes like something else. It tastes
like pie, it tastes like cookies, it tastes like tiramisu and all different sorts of flavors.
Cupcake shops have popped up all over the place. And us, we bake custom cakes, but we
also sell cupcakes in our store because it's really fun to have bite sized portions of
cake.