Food Friday: Bacon for dessert

You read that correctly. As a little birthday treat to four of my friends (who all have a birthday within one week of each other), I made maple-bacon cupcakes and took them to the joint birthday party. And they. were. phenom.




These are pretty easy, but a little time-consuming, especially if you don't have a griddle to cook all the bacon at once. But boy, are they worth it. This recipe makes 15 to 24 bacon-y bits of goodness, depending on how full you fill the cupcake liners.

Ingredients:
- 3 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 sticks (1 cup) butter, room temperature
- 1 1/3 cups brown sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2/3 cup buttermilk
- 2/3 cup maple sugar
- 1 pound bacon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line your muffin trays with cupcake liners. Cook the bacon until it's nice and crispy, and set over paper towels to drain. While it's draining, grab a large bowl and whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt until well-combined. Set aside about three or four pieces of bacon; chop the rest into very small pieces.

In a separate bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then beat in the vanilla. With the mixer on a slow setting, stir in the buttermilk and syrup. Then gradually add the dry ingredients, using the mixer to incorporate. About halfway through, I had to switch to a wooden spoon because the batter got too thick for my crappy hand mixer. Finally, mix in the finely chopped bacon pieces.

Carefully spoon the batter into your cupcake liners. I filled mine too full and had fewer cupcakes; I'd recommend filling them 1/2- to 3/4 full for more, smaller cupcakes. Or you know, fill them all the way for fewer, giant cupcakes. Anyway, bake 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick pushed into the center of a cupcake comes out clean.

After the cupcakes are done, remove from the pan and set on the counter or a cookie rack to cool. While they're cooling, you can make the icing. The icing I made didn't turn out too well, so I'm not going to include it. (Unless, you know, you guys want that recipe. For what it's worth, I didn't like it...it was just powdered sugar, butter, milk and maple syrup.)

After the cupcakes are fully cooled, top them with frosting. Grab those last three or four whole pieces of bacon and chop them into large pieces, to garnish the top of the frosting. Try not to drool.

(Pro-tip/fat-kid-tip: One of my friends said he ate a few cupcakes for breakfast the next morning because they tasted like pancakes...he toasted them and slathered them in butter. Oh. My. God. Why didn't I think of that?!)