When is a bun not a bun?

Talking of buns and cakes, where have all the Eccles Cakes gone? Can’t see them anywhere- I love them

To me, a bun is a small sponge cake :-) But not as small as a fairy cake. Usually currant buns but can be without currants. Except now they keep calling them muffins (American), whereas to me, muffins - English muffins, are a bread based thing. I've given up! I make buns in muffin tins - they are now just slightly bigger buns. I've heard of fairy cakes but aren't they a bit smaller (shallower bun tin?) or more like butterfly buns? Just confused myself there ha ha. Just by using the word "bun tin" and butterfly buns. So buns are cakes :-)

My bun tin is for buns, mince pies and yorkshire puddings. My muffin tin is for big buns and bigger yorkshire puddings!

Up here in north of Scotland when I was a child in the 50's we had home made fairy cakes(small sponge cupcakes) and from the bakers as a treat the yeast based cakes which came in various forms (iced buns sliced with real cream in the centre, pleated buns with dried fruit and a syrup glace and chelsea buns same as pleated but in a circle). My favourite was an iced bun as my mother used to open them up and pop in some home made rasp jam! Cup cakes were just the same sponge mixture as fairy cakes but in larger paper cases which meant there was more toppings - came over from America I also believe - of course they had to be bigger!!!

I’m in Yorkshire, too, and I call these mini cakes “buns”. I never call them fairy cakes, little cakes, mini cakes or muffins.
Of course, certain yeast delicacies are referred to as buns, too, such a Chelsea buns.
The thing they have in common, I think, is that they are all sweet.

Always buns in the North East.

My parents were from Surrey and I was born there, but moved north, where fairy cakes are buns, but I stuck with what my mum called them. To me buns are definitely made with dough of some sort, but I am multilingual, so I go with whatever is being said around me.