Girl's Summer

There might be some technical differences that a cook could tell us about, but from the consumer's point of view, the difference seems to be that a cupcake really is like a miniature cake: light in weight, sweet, and often covered with icing and decorations. It tends to be not too tall because it's texture isn't strong enough to allow for a very tall structure. It's always made with white flour as far as I know. A muffin is significantly heavier in texture and also in weight; with its cohesiveness, it can contain fruit, nuts or chocolate chips, which are not common in cupcakes. It is never iced and need not be particularly sweet. It can be made with ingredients as heavy as bran, and can be rather tall and have a large overhanging rim that doesn't threaten to fall off. (The cupcake also has a rim, but it is rather delicate and not too large.)

If you threw a cupcake against the wall, you would hear something of a "poof!" If you threw a muffin, you would hear a "thud!"

A muffin goes with coffee, a cupcake with tea. (That's a rather controversial statement, so perhaps this discussion should be moved to the controversial topics zone.) Fast food joints deal in muffins, especially in North America, but I have never seen one that sold a cupcake.

Sociologically, a muffin is everyday living, whereas a cupcake is "we're getting fancy." Theoretically, a man could say, "hey honey" to his waitress while he was chewing on a muffin, but with cupcake in his mouth he could only say, "my dear." If you were writing a novel, it would be a gross literary error to substitute a cupcake for a muffin.

材料：
Muffins:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 ripe bananas, peeled and coarsely mashed

Frosting:
3 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup mascarpone cheese, room temperature
3 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted

Line 18 muffin cups with paper liners. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a medium bowl to blend. Beat the sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl to blend. Stir in the banana. Add the dry ingredients and stir just until blended.

Divide the batter among the prepared muffin cups. Bake the muffins on the middle rack until the tops are golden brown and a tester inserted into the center comes out with no crumbs attached, about 25 minutes. Transfer the muffins to a rack and cool slightly. The muffins may be eaten warm or cooled completely and frosted.

To frost the cupcakes: Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the mascarpone cheese and then beat in the honey. Spread the frosting over the muffins. Sprinkle with the walnuts.