I've been baking for a good amount of time. Am I like those children on the "Kids Baking Championship" who have been baking since they were 3? Absolutely not but I still have done a fair share of baking in my lifetime. From crafting my own birthday cakes to making vegan macarons, I know my way around with a whisk and some flour. However, my favorite, and arguably the best dessert ever, is cupcakes. The most glorious, angelic, and appealing desert mankind has ever given to the world is a cupcake. They're fluffy, moist, and come paired with some lovely buttercream (if it isn't buttercream, I'm just weirded out).

But as we explore the majestic little dessert, there's a characteristic it has we just don't talk about enough: it's just a muffin. The handheld, delectable dessert is simply a muffin without buttercream. Now, I am not doing this to tear down cupcakes. I see those posts being like "a muffin is just an ugly cupcake" which is completely wrong and greatly disrespectful to the muffin. The humble muffin and delicate cupcake are not on separate parts of the baking spectrum with their obvious shared characteristics. While their baking methods are highly similar, we're not taking easy shots here. Instead, we must dig deeper. We must get to the true component of cupcakes and muffins.

For starters, the best part of both of them is the top. If we look at it this way, we are totally including the buttercream on a cupcake. The first thing anyone admires and dives in for on a cupcake is its glorious little hat of deliciousness. You never, ever judge a cupcake's appearance based on its cake part. It is always about how pretty the decorating and buttercream looks and it's relation to the rest of the cupcake flavor. The muffin does not steer clear from this standard either. The best part of the muffin is the top. I mean, heck, even Panera Bread sells just the top of muffins. It's what anyone enjoying a muffin looks forward too, just as it is on a cupcake.

The fruit content within both the desserts is huge, too. Almost every muffin anyone will consume is fruit themed. Whether it's blueberry, lemon poppy seed, cherry, banana nut, any fruit under the sun can be stuffed into the little-baked good. Cupcakes for the same, too. Blueberry cupcakes? Yup, they're a thing. Martha Stewart even has a recipe for them. Fresh strawberry cupcakes paired with a fluffy strawberry cream cheese frosting? Yes, those exist too. The only major difference I can pull out of them is one has a crispy fruit topping while the other generally has a fluffy fruit frosting. Is there anything wrong with that? No -- they still share common fruit themes.

For my final and probably most compelling evidence, in this case, is once again the content of the dessert at times: sweetness. Both cupcakes and muffins can take on very sweet, even rich, flavor profiles. Cupcakes have the obvious with stars such as s'mores cupcakes (yes, I got you a recipe), cheesecake filled cupcakes (I had to get you the recipe for this one), and even tiramisu cupcakes (this one just sounds so DEADLY). While this might not be too wild for cupcakes, muffins can have these kinds of wacky flavors. Just a few to get your mouth watering includes gingerbread muffins (they sound better than eating gingerbread houses), peanut butter chocolate chip (the perfect gooey mess), and buttermilk maple french toast (I'll take these for breakfast, please). Both these lovely desserts can have complex layers to them but one just doesn't need the aide of a frosting to help deliver flavors.

We need to stop comparing muffins and cupcakes. We need to stop talking about their "differences" or where one should "draw the line" because both are beautiful and present us with the flavors we need in their own special way. Muffins aren't the ugly version of cupcakes, they are simply a different form of cupcake. To put it short: they're cousins in the baking world and you can't tell me differently.