Sunday, August 16, 2009

French Toast Cuppycakes with Bacon

I totally stole this recipe from The Busty Baker.



These cupcakes came out so delicious! The maple buttercream has a very smooth texture, like whipped butter. It's very different from the buttercream frostings I normally like to make (I usually favor a very thick, heavy buttercream). However, it works perfectly with these half-savory, half-cinnamon-rolly cupcakes. My husband and I are both in love with them.


French Toast Cupcakes
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and then cooled
2 eggs
1 tsp maple extract
1/2 cup milk
10-12 slices bacon

1. Preheat oven to 350F and line baking pan with paper liners.

2. Cook bacon in batches by prefered method until browned, but still slightly flexible. Soak up any extra oil on paper towels and set aside to cool. Once bacon is cooled enough to handle, cut a couple slices of bacon into inch-long pieces. This will be the decoration on top of the cupcake, so make as many as you think you'll need. Set aside. Chop or tear the remaining bacon into tiny pieces. Set aside.

3. In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.

4. In a large bowl, whisk together butter, sugar and eggs until smooth. Whisk in maple extract. Alternately whisk in flour mixture and milk, making three additions of flour mix and two of milk, beating until smooth. Fold in small bacon pieces. Mix until evenly distributed throughout batter.

5. Scoop batter into prepared pan and bake 20-25 minutes until golden brown and tops spring back when lightly touched. Let cool in pan on a rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely.






Maple Buttercream
2 cups confectioner's sugar
3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon maple extract
Pinch of salt

1. In a bowl with an electric mixer, beat butter until light and fluffy. Add maple syrup, maple extract, and salt, and beat until well combined. Add confectioner's sugar, half cup at a time, and beat until smooth and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

2. Frost or pipe onto cooled cupcakes. Top with inch-long bacon pieces.



2 comments:

Steph said...

Your swirl looks really nice! I still haven't tried the bacon in desserts yet. It sounds good with the sweet and salty, but for some reason the meat aspect seems kinda weird. I will have to give it a try someday though because they look delicious!

n3m3sis42 said...

Hi Steph! Thank you for the compliment. :D

I have to admit that my husband Mike pipes on the frosting for me. He has a much steadier hand with the piping bag than I do.

The bacon worked a lot better than I thought it would - I would never have thought to use this combination. Mad props to Danae, the person who I got it from! Now I want to think up other sweet + savory combinations for cupcakes. :D