Bacon Blueberry Pancake Cupcakes

While flipping through The Cupcake Diaries early this week, a recipe caught my eye - Bacon Blueberry Pancake Cupcakes. I wasn't sure whether to cringe or not because I'd never considered bacon as a cupcake ingredient. My curiosity got the better of me though, and I knew that I had to try these cupcakes, if for no other reason than to discover whether or not they were as gross as a little part of me imagined they could be (for the record, they were most definitely not gross).

I was not exactly sure what to expect with these. They had the potential to go one of two ways - delicious, or disgusting. They fared on the delicious side, as I was pleasantly surprised to find. The flavours go surprisingly well together, the cupcakes stay moist due to the maple syrup in them, and the salty bacon is offset nicely by the sweet blueberries. I highly recommend that you all give these a try! And, in hindsight, considering my love of breakfast foods, I'm not sure how I could have doubted these little gems.

This recipe will make you 24 cupcakes, for which you'll need:
6 slices maple bacon
1 3/4 cup plus 1 tsp sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
Seeds from 1 vanilla bean (or an additional 1-2 tsp vanilla)
1 1/4 cups milk, at room temperature
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 cup fresh blueberries

Maple Cream Cheese Icing:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
12 oz cream cheese (1 1/2 sticks)
8 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and line muffin pans with baking cups or grease them to avoid sticking. Fry the bacon until very crunchy, sprinkle with the 1tsp of sugar, and then remove from the heat, strain the grease, and chop up into fine bits. Set the bacon aside for use later. Next, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt, and set it aside as well.

Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat on medium speed until well incorporated. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing slowly after each. Combine the vanilla, vanilla bean seeds (if using) and milk in a liquid measuring cup. Reduce the mixer speed to low and alternately add the flour and milk mixtures, stopping to scrape the sides as needed. Mix slowly until just combined. Add the maple syrup, mixing slowly. Then, using a spatula, gently fold the bacon bits and blueberries into the batter.

Scoop the batter into baking cups and bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre of a cupcake comes out clean. Allow the cupcakes to cool entirely.

For the frosting, combine all the ingredients in the stand mixer and beat until smooth and well combined. Turn the mixer to high speed for a couple of minutes at the end to get a light, whipped icing. Ice the cooled cupcakes as desired, and voila!

Let me know what you think of these cupcakes! The great thing about them is that, you could conceivably legitimize eating them for breakfast. Bacon, blueberry pancakes, maple syrup, cream cheese - all legitimate breakfast foods. And what could be better for breakfast than dessert? I have yet to discover an answer to that. Maybe you could make these into your Sunday morning family breakfast. I'm sure they'll thank you for it!

If you're considering bacon in your dessert, here are a few other options if blueberry isn't for you (and please let me know the results if you try any of these!):
Maple Bacon Cupcakes
Maple French Toast and Bacon Cupcakes
Bacon Cupcakes: Sunny Side Up
Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes

Enjoy the weekend, and please feel free to subscribe to the blog or visit the Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages for more delicious updates!

Springtime = Caketime

With the exception of the past two days, we've been blessed with gorgeous spring weather recently! Taking that into consideration, I used the spring as a theme in a recent cake I made for a school celebration. The cake was my favourite chocolate cake, the recipe for which you can find here, or on the recipes page with several of my other faves!

What I really wanted to talk about was how simple it was to make this cake, though some of the details look quite intricate. What you'll take away from this post is not only a simple way to make pretty cakes, but also that I'm a bit lazy (well, not lazy per se, but I sure wouldn't take the time to craft each flower on my own).

To start, I covered the cake in chocolate buttercream, and the followed that with a layer of fondant. This was a simple marshmallow fondant made from green mini-marshmallows.

Next, I divided gum paste into three sections, colouring them blue, pink, and brown respectively. I've come to find that gum paste is much nicer to work with than fondant, so I chose it for the decorations as opposed to the fondant that I'd usually used previously.

Now, here's the real trick - gum paste molds. They are quite possibly the easiest thing to use, honestly. There are several different Wilton ones to choose from, and I chose a spring themed one. Simply dust the molds with corn starch (I'm sure icing sugar would work well too) and then push the gum paste into the molds. Carefully remove the gum paste and trim any areas that may need trimming. Voila, easy peasy.

To attach the gum paste, I used a small brush and sum water but you can of course use gum glue. Once the pieces were attached, I painted sugar dust onto the flowers for some extra dimension. The cake was a hit, and I think (despite my protest that it was much easier than it looked) I was given much more credit than necessary for this quick little cake. It really does look like spring in a cake though, and tasted alright too!

For more updates, ideas, and general cake banter subscribe to the blog or visit the Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages! Until next time!

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

Here it is, lovelies: a long awaited (and hopefully much anticipated) post about Pink Lemonade Cupcakes! When I say long awaited, what I mean is that this post is coming to you much later in the week than usual. For that I apologize, but let me tell you that it was completely worth my while to put this post off. I read 1055 pages, or 3 books, over the course of the last three days. That's the entire Hunger Games trilogy. Worth every minute I put the rest of my tasks on hold.

Having said that, thank you for waiting! I hope that you enjoy these cupcakes as much as I did because they were completely fantastic! I found the original recipe via Pinterest. They stayed extremely moist (although they were a bit sticky) and the glaze was a welcomed change from the usual vast amounts of frosting. These were also a great way to welcome the warm weather we've been having. I'm generally against using cake mix, but for these I've made an exception!

For the cupcakes, you'll need:

1 package lemon cake mix
1 package instant lemon pudding mix
4 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup pink lemonade concentrate
4 drops pink food colour (optional)
Additional 1 cup pink lemonade concentrate
1/2 cup sugar

For the glaze, you'll need:
1/4 cup butter
2 cups icing sugar
2 tbsp cream
1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line two muffin pans with paper liners. In a large bowl, combine the cake and pudding mixes, eggs, vegetable oil, milk, food colour, and first portion (1/2 cup) of lemonade concentrate. Beat all of the ingredients together and then pour into the prepared muffin pans. Bake for approximately 20 minutes.

Once the cupcakes are baked, and have cooled ever so slightly, combine the second portion of lemonade concentrate and the sugar. Poke holes, using a fork, in the surface of the cupcakes and then pour the sugar and lemonade mixture over the cupcakes so that the liquid enters the holes in the cupcakes. This will keep the cupcakes extremely moist (although fair warning, they will be sticky).

Once the cupcakes have cooled completely, prepare the glaze. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Once it is completely melted, pour the butter over the icing sugar in a large bowl. Add the cream and then beat the ingredients together until smooth, adding the vanilla if desired. Spread a thin layer of the glaze over the cupcakes.

Once the cupcakes are ready, enjoy! They are the perfect summer cupcake. They're a little bit sweet and a little bit refreshing and a lot delicious. This was my first time making a glaze for any sort of cake so I was happy with how it turned out, and I'll definitely be adding these Pink Lemonade Cupcakes to my recipe book!