#50 Maple Bacon Cupcakes

I bet you were thinking that I'd given up on my cuppycake challenge. Nope just taking a little break but I'm back now and ready to show off these tasty creations. I'm also excited to see that I'm half way through my challenge too. I never thought I would have 50 different cupcakes under my belt! So back to the cupcakes.... Think IHOP pancakes and bacon. Just grab a cup of OJ and you have a complete breakfast! I'm not a huge fan of cream cheese frosting but in this case it complemented the cupcake well with it's perfect combination of sweet and salty.

Maple Bacon Cupcakes (courtesy of foodnetwork)
The only adjustment for next time would be to add more BACON!!!

The Goods

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup cake flour

1 3.9-ounce box instant vanilla pudding mix

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon potato starch

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temp

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

4 large egg whites, at room temperature

1/4 cup maple syrup

1/2 cup half-and-half, at room temperature

1/2 cup chopped cooked bacon

The How To
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cook your bacon and set aside to cool.  In a large bowl whisk together the flours, pudding, baking powder, potato starch, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.

In the bowl of a stand mixer cream the butter and both sugar until light and fluffy about 3-5mins on med-high speed.

Turn the speed down to low and gradually mix in the vanilla and egg whites. 

Add the flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with the maple syrup and half-and-half, mixing after each addition and ending with flour. Mix until the ingredients are just combined; do not over mix.

Fold in the bacon.

Fill liners about two thirds full and bake for 20-25mins rotating halfway through the bake time.

While those little tasty morsels are cooling whip up the
Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

The Goods

8oz package cream cheese room temp

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temp

2 cups sifted powdered sugar

1/4 cup maple syrup

2 teaspoons cinnamon

The How To
Combine the cream cheese and butter with the mixer on medium speed until creamy.

Add the powdered sugar, maple syrup and cinnamon; beat until combined. 

 I also added a little extra bacon to the frosting :)

 Now frost and top with more BACON!!!

Up Next...
PB & J Cupcakes 

#23 Sweet Potato Cupcakes

Sorry I didn't get these up sooner. I've been kinda busy. I made these cupcakes for Thanksgiving and they were a huge hit!!! I used Mascarpone cheese and maple syrup for the filling in the center. This cream cheese has almost a cream taste and was much smoother than regular cream cheese. It was a nice change. The original marshmallow frosting was a disaster!!! It never got fluffy and it was more like runny marshmallow fluff. Thankfully I had a back up plan which was piling a bunch of mini marshmallows on top and browning them in the broiler. This method was much easier and there was no sticky mess.

my tasty filling ingredients

Sweet Potato Cupcakes (courtesy of Cupcake Project)


The Goods

2cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup unsalted butter melted
4lg eggs, lightly beaten
15oz sweet potato puree

The How To

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together flour, baking soda/powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice then set aside.

In a bowl of a stand up mixer whisk together brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and eggs.

butter, sugar, eggs

now it's all whisked together

Add dry ingredients, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in sweet potato puree.

the dry was just added here

I used the sweet potatoes that came in a jar and pureed it. Much easier than boiling the potatoes.

With the potatoes added to the batter

Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about halfway. Seriously don't fill more than half way these suckers really rise well.

Bake until tops spring back when touched about 20-25mins. You can also do the tooth pick test. Make sure to rotate the pan half way through the baking time. Transfer to wire rack and let cool.

Looking good! Almost time to fill these baby's up!!!

For the filling all i did was mix an 8oz container of Mascarpone cheese with 2 tablespoons of pure maple syrup. Then I spooned it into a pastry bag and filled the middle of the cups.

Cheese and maple syrup all mixed together

What an artsy picture this is!! Pretty good for me ;)

So when it came time to make the marshmallow frosting I thought i did a pretty good job of following directions but something went terribly wrong and the frosting never got fluffy. Since I never made it before I went along with it and still put in top of the cupcakes. HUGE mistake!! The stuff started spreading across the tops of the cups down the sides it turned into a really big sticky mess. Luckily the cupcake recipe made a little over 2 dozen so I took the unsticky ones and topped them with canned nuts and regular marshmallows then toasted them in the oven.

As you can see I tried covering up my sticky mess with more marshmallows. Looks can be deceiving!! You could barley get the wrapper off the cake!!!

Much better and no sticky mess!!! Not bad for a last min. change.

Up Next...
Tres Leches Coconut Cupcakes