The internet is full of fabulous facts about everything from current events to the history basket weaving. Because of this, as we research for our daily content on food trucks, food carts and street food, we stumble upon some items of knowledge that we just did not know. We have decided when these fun facts pop up, that we would share them with our readers in our section titled “Did You Know?”

For today’s Did You Know fun food facts we will look at Cupcakes.

The Facts: Cupcakes have been around since the late 1700’s. The first mention of the cupcake can be traced as far back as 1796, when a recipe notation of “a cake to be baked in small cups” was written in American Cookery by Amelia Simms.

• Cupcakes were actually originally called “Number Cakes” or “1234 Cakes” because it was an easy way to remember portions…One cup of butter, two cups of sugar, three cups of flour, four eggs, one cup of milk, and one spoonful of soda.
• October 18th is National Chocolate Cupcake Day.
• Original cupcake recipes were not frosted, and usually were usually just flavored with spices or dried fruit.
• In 1919, cupcakes gained popularity when Hostess became mass producing them. But they weren’t the cream filled, frosted kind we all know until the 1950’s.
• Cupcakes started gaining popularity in the early 2000’s when NYC shops like Magnolia Bakery were featured on Sex and the City.
• The record for eating the most cupcakes in the shortest time is 29 cupcakes in 30 seconds.
• The world’s largest cupcake weighed over 1,200 lbs and had over 2 million calories.
• The first “cupcake only” bakery is Sprinkles Cupcakes, opened in 2005. They make over 25,000 cupcakes a day from 11 locations.