Chocolate Bacon and Toffee Cupcakes

 

Thanks to the suggestion of a coworker and at the request of my husband, I decided to venture into the unknown and explore bacon cupcakes. The idea of any meat in a dessert is admittedly more than a tiny bit disturbing.  Of course, if one were forced to select a meat that might enhance a dessert, it would have to be bacon. Bacon is simply delightful swimming in maple syrup next to golden-brown pancakes on a snugly Saturday morning, so it would reasonably follow that a cupcake with maple frosting is not a fry cry from this delectable breakfast scenario. 

Having selected the flavor, I set about looking for a recipe for bacon cupcakes. You might imagine this to be a difficult task, but it seems that there is a trend in the baking world towards using bacon in cakes. After looking over several recipes, I ended up using one from Cupcake Bakeshop. She has two recipes for bacon cupcakes, one that calls for fresh corn, and one more traditional, if you can imagine. I made a few, minimal alterations to the chocolate recipe. It follows below.

Chocolate Bacon and Toffee Cupcakes

Makes about 18 regular cupcakes

1/2 c. butter at room temperature

1 c. + 2 tbs. sugar

2 large eggs at room temperature

3/4 c. flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/8 tsp. salt

1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 c. whole milk

1 tsp. vanilla

4 slices cooked bacon cut into chunks

1/3 c. chopped chocolate covered toffee

Beat the butter until softened. I cut mine up into pats and then creamed it. Add the sugar and beat until thoroughly incorporated. Add the two eggs, blending until well combined. 

In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Mix the vanilla and milk in a measuring cup. Alternate adding the dry and wet ingredients to your butter mixture, ending with the dry. When the batter is well mixed it will be thick, the consistency of a brownie batter. 

Fold in your bacon and chocolate covered toffees. 

Place cupcake liners in your pan and add batter until each cup is about 2/3 full. Bake for about 21-25 minutes at 350, or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

2 packages of cream cheese

1/2 c. butter at room temperature

5-8 cups sifted powdered sugar

3 tsp. maple flavored extract

Cream together the butter and cream cheese. Begin adding powdered sugar a cup at a time. Doing this slowly will prevent powered sugar clouds from taking over your kitchen. Add the maple extract and mix until smooth. Taste the frosting to ensure you have achieved the right strength of maple flavoring and it is the proper consistency. 

Pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes using a pastry bag and large round tip.

These cupcakes were mild and delicious. The bits of bacon in the cake complemented the maple cream cheese frosting nicely. I felt that the toffee flavor, unfortunately, disappeared when competing with the chocolate and bacon combination of the cupcake, but my husband was able to distinguish and appreciate its subtle flavor. I will definitely revisit the toffee flavor, but I believe it merits a cupcake all to itself. The frosting, because it was in large part cream cheese, was light and creamy with just the perfect level of sweetness. Its taste and consistency was very similar to that of the frosting on an Italian Cream Cake. My husband described these cupcakes as brownies with bacon- the bacon being an added bonus.