BUNS, fairy cakes or cupcakes.

It’s such a shame that we have, in a round sort of way, let our good-old-fashioned and traditional 'buns' and 'fairy cakes' be willingly replaced by their are much larger, louder and more showy cousin the cupcake.

What on earth happened to traditional?

Besides the very obvious fact that this non-native species has more calories than our more traditional offerings, let’s face facts, it’s practically the same thing but just smaller.

We do like to hold on to much tradition in the United Kingdom, so why have we so willingly accepted this alien invasion from across the Atlantic?

I refer, of course, to the dreaded copycat American cupcake that has gate-crashed our tea party and taken over the top spot, without so much as a muffled comment about our poor old little bun.

You see, we have allowed this blousey, bouffant and frankly over-the-top creation to sweep past our great British buns and fairy cakes and push them out of the way.

How could our own dainty little native fairies hope to compete with such all-American behemoths?

The television baking programmes are plentiful these days, showing us all the lovely cupcakes piled high with tooth-achingly sugary icing topping buttercream with ready-made fondant flowers and colourful hundreds-and-thousands.

E numbers are sprinkled on top of your freshly0baked cupcake mushrooms. Yet not a mention of buns or fairly cakes any more.

Shame on you Mary Berry.

I often actually begin to question myself whether I had actually got this wrong, did buns and fairly cakes ever exist, except in my own imagination?

But I delved into mum’s old and trusted recipe book and soon put my mind at rest, baking a batch of buns and buttercream-filled fairy cakes again.

Cupcakes are lovely, do not get me wrong, but please let us not forget the just scrumptious and dainty little bun we so fondly remember from our early birthday parties, proudly decorated by you. They never failed to make people smile.

Call them what you like, keep the sponge nice and light and remember the golden rule is to have equal amounts of butter, sugar and flour and half the number of eggs.

Children are just going to love making and decorating them – keep it simple with white water icing and a few natural-coloured sprinkles or maybe a half cherry.

If you do have some butter left make some butterfly buns which can be made simply by slicing the top off the cake, then fill the cavities with a little jam and buttercream.

Cut the sliced top in half and arrange on top of the filling to resemble butterfly wings, dust lightly with icing sugar and you really can't go wrong, putting a smile on any face or age!

• Have you missed any of Baker Mike’s previous Friend In Need columns in the Keighley News? Never fear, simply visit keighleynews.co.uk, click on What’s On then Food & Drink, and you’ll find oodles of recipes.