New research based on data gathered from social media has determined the world’s most popular type of cake.

When it comes to popularity, especially on the topic of food, it’s hard to go past Instagram as a source. After all, it’s where so many meals end up; styled, photographed, filtered and hashtagged into neat categories.

With much of the world in lockdown as a result of coronavirus over the past few months, more people have turned to baking as a source of entertainment and comfort, and naturally they’re sharing their efforts on social media.

Research from UK website Play Like Mum analysed the number of times particular hashtags were used globally to find out what, by this standard, is the world’s most popular cake variety.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the cupcake came in at number one, hashtagged an enormous 22 million times and searched 443,000 times, no doubt due to its versatility and pleasing aesthetics.

Second and third on the list were Tiramisu and cheesecake, with devil’s food cake and Kouign-Amann also rating highly.

From a purely hashtagged perspective (not taking into account searches), cheesecake and brownie would rate second and third.

Interestingly, although cupcakes date back as far as the 1700s, they only really became popular in the 1900s, and really boomed when popular New York City bakeries were featured on the early 2000s hit television series Sex and the City.