Bacon made with our Bacon Cooker, ready to be crumbled onto the cupcakes!
Cooking is an adventure, baking especially so! Like pottery, baking is something that takes experimentation and creativity. Of course, I am an artist, not a chef, so sometimes things don’t go as planned in the kitchen! Our daughter and I have wanted to make Maple Bacon Cupcakes, mainly because we guessed they would be oddly delicious. (They are!) Our first batch of cupcakes resembled tiny volcanoes. Marin, a little optimist like her dad, pointed out that we could fill the crater with icing! Luckily, our second attempt at the cupcakes turned out amazing. We have developed our twist on a family favorite and a new Maple Cream Sauce (recipe below). Read below to learn how we did it!
First, we cooked a pound of bacon in our microwaveable Blue Sage Bacon Cooker. You have to cook the bacon in a couple of batches. Kent then chopped and crumbled the crispy bacon. Check out my last blog post for instructions on how to use the Bacon Cooker. We then poured the bacon grease through a small metal kitchen sieve and kept it to use in the cupcakes. I know that sounds weird, but it gives an excellent bacon flavor to the cake. We first tried subbing in half the butter with bacon fat, but that was too much bacon flavor! We settled on subbing in a ¼ cup of the butter with bacon grease, and that worked great! The cupcake recipe we used is one that my mother-in-law, a frequent and excellent baker, gave us. You could use any vanilla cupcake recipe you like, replace ¼ cup of the fat with bacon grease, and replace the vanilla extract with half the amount of maple extract (a little maple extract does go a long way).
While cooking the bacon in batches, we made the Maple Cream Sauce. We looked over lots of recipes and blended them using what we had in the refrigerator. It turned out awesome! I will definitely be using this on other decadent treats in the future. The recipe below makes just enough to drizzle onto the frosting, which is gilding the lily, but Marin insisted we have drizzles on the cupcake swirls. We decided to add ¼ cup of the Maple Cream Sauce in the frosting, and it made it soooo good!! It was the best-tasting maple frosting I have ever had because the flavor was not overpowering. You can take your favorite Buttercream Icing recipe, one good for piping, and blend in the Maple Cream Sauce with a mixer for a subtle maple flavor and smooth icing.
When the cupcakes cooled we piped the frosting using a basic round tip and drizzled the Maple Sauce over the icing with a spoon. The last step is to sprinkle bacon crumbles all over the cupcakes. The bacon should stick to the sauce and frosting!
MARIN’S MAPLE CREAM SAUCE
Sit back, relax, and enjoy that cupcake!
In a bowl, combine the cornstarch and water and set aside. In a saucepan, combine the syrup, butter, and half n’ half. Cook over medium heat, stirring for about three minutes. Stir in the cornstarch mixture, and turn the heat down a bit. Keep stirring while it boils down. When you have a thick creamy mixture, remove from the heat and let it cool:
Ingredients:
½ C Maple Syrup, Grade A
1 TBS Butter
2 TBS Half n’ Half
1 TBS Cornstarch
2 TBS Cold Water