Bacon Maple Cupcakes!

The title of this says it all… BACON!!!!! Who doesn’t like bacon?! Seriously… I judge that person. Just kidding. Anywho, I found this recipe on Reddit and I had to try it. It looked so easy and simple. A lot of bacon maple cupcakes are actually pretty complex, but this one is good and apparently it tastes like a pancake. Recipe here: Butter cake recipe: Makes somewhere between 12-15-ish cupcakes. So I usually just make 12 and then pad them a bit with the extra batter.

• 1/2 cup butter (softened)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1^1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1^1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F. Beat the butter and sugar at medium speed until creamy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, and beat until blended after each egg. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add this to the butter mixture alternating with milk. Begin and end with the flour mixture. Beat at a low speed until each addition is blended. Stir in the vanilla extract. Place paper baking cups in your muffin pan (I like the foil-lined kind to keep the colors from fading). Cups should be about 2/3 full. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Might take longer. Just make sure that if you put a wooden toothpick in the center, it comes out clean. Before I make the frosting, I make the bacon. Make it whatever crispy level you want, although I like it to be a bit chewier. Let the bacon cool while you make the frosting and pipe it. Maple Frosting: Should make enough for all cupcakes, but it depends on how much you pipe. I like piping the icing on with the closed star tip thing using a frosting bag.

• 8 tablespoons of softened butter
• 4 tablespoons of fancy maple syrup (I use grade A)
• 2 cups of powdered sugar

Throw the syrup and butter and beat it until it’s combined on medium speed. Whip at high speeds, adding the sugar a bit at a time. Keep whipping until it has the consistency you like. Pipe the icing over the cupcakes. Tear the bacon up into large-ish pieces and put it over the icing.   So I took a stab at it and came out amazing.

I followed the recipe pretty closely, except I used Maple flavor from King Arthur rather than Maple Syrup. It’s 100% natural flavor. I only used a few drops and it was the the perfect amount to have the flavor be just right in the icing. I did make 3 dozen of these so keep that in mind.

Final product:

Results: AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everybody I gave them to loved them! I’m still awaiting results for how they did in the baking contest at my boyfriend’s work (the reason why I made them) but either way, they were a definite win.
Cake: B+ (a little dense, but it was supposed to be that way)
Icing: A+ (including the bacon on top, hehe)
Overall: A