Cupcake vs Donuts - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between cupcake and donuts

is that cupcake is a small cake baked in a paper container shaped like a cup, often with icing on top while donuts is plural of lang=en.

(en noun)

A small cake baked in a paper container shaped like a cup, often with icing on top.

(slang) An attractive young woman.

* 2006 , Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day , Vintage 2007, p. 604:

Whatever else this cupcake might be up to, she was no piker.

(slang) A weak or effeminate man.

(dated) (Used as a term of endearment)

* 2010 , Kimberly Cates, The Perfect Match

“Listen, cupcake ,” Cash tried to soothe. “Sometimes when grownups get mad, they say things they don't mean. I'm sure your mother—”