Bacon on a maple cupcake? Yes please!

I know what you are thinking... What in the world?!? But trust me on this one.  What can be better than a maple flavored butter cupcake with a maple caramel frosting topped with candied bacon? Its breakfast in a cupcake wrapper! And sinfully delicious.

To start, make the candied bacon. I used a thick cut bacon and baked it over a silpat mat to make clean up easier. I also baked it on a rack so it wouldn't be too greasy and cause the candied goodness to come off. If you want a more savory cupcake, you could use peppered bacon. I opted for applewood smoked bacon. It never lets me down.

Its really easy, I won't even put up a recipe on how to make it. You sprinkle the bacon with a generous amount brown sugar and bake it at 325 degrees F for about 20 minutes. Carefully turn it over, sprinkle and bake until crispy enough for you. If you are using a thinner bacon, adjust your times. Make sure you have extra because you will be snacking on this delicious treat.

Remember, your bacon will crisp up once its out of the oven. Also, resist the temptation to pop it right into your mouth. Molten sugar burns just FYI...

I didn't take pics of the cupcake making process. Its just making cupcakes. No crazy secrets. Most people who would go to the effort of making candied bacon can figure out how to make a cupcake. Maybe I should have posted pics of making the frosting but I didn't take any. I was distracted by the bacon. It was fantastic to say the least.

So here is the finished product! I didn't let the caramel syrup cool in the fridge because I wanted a runnier frosting, kind of like on a donut. If you want a more whipped frosting, put the syrup in the fridge to cool down. Easy.

These puppies almost didn't leave my house. I was meeting with some friends so I brought them along. They were a hit.

So without further ado... the recipe:

Maple Butter Cupcakes

Yield Makes 36 cupcakes          

Ingredients

• 3 cups cake flour
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, (regualr salt, not kosher or coarse. It doesn't mix in worth a crap!)
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (2 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 5 large whole eggs plus 3 egg yolks, room temperature
• 2 cups buttermilk, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons maple flavoring

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Eat a piece of bacon. Line cupcake pan with paper liners. Whisk together flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy with a mixer on medium-high speed. Reduce speed to medium. Crack eggs into a bowl then add one at a time until combined, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low or you'll get flour everywhere! Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and beating until combined after each. Eat more bacon. Mix in maple. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Use an ice cream scoop with a trigger to make it easier and the cupcakes uniform in size. Bake, rotating pans halfway through, until cupcakes spring back when lightly touched and a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Let your cupcake pans hang out for a minute while you eat more bacon then transfer the cupcakes to wire racks to cool completely.

Caramel Maple Frosting

Yields 3 cups

Ingredients 

• 1 cup butter minus 1 tablespoon
• 1 tablespoon bacon grease
• 1 (16-oz.) package dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon maple flavoring

Directions

Melt butter and bacon grease in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add brown sugar and bring to a boil, stirring and eating bacon constantly. Stir in evaporated milk, baking soda, and light corn syrup; bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and let cool. If you want a stiff frosting, cool in the fridge for at about an hour. For a slightly runnier frosting like I used, just let it cool on the counter for an hour or so until its almost room temp. Transfer caramel mixture to a large mixing bowl. Beat on low and slowly add powdered sugar to caramel mixture then beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Stir in maple flavoring. Eat bacon. Beat at high speed 2 minutes or until fluffy. You may need to add more sugar to reach your desired consistency. Put down the bacon and use this frosting quickly. It will firm up fast.

To decorate, frost the cupcakes and garnish with whatever candied bacon you haven't eaten by this point.



Comfort Food

Today is Mother's Day and I don't feel very well. I'm coughing. My nose is runny. My throat hurts. I wanted some comfort food gosh darnit. I had half a rotisserie chicken left in my fridge so Chicken and Dumplings it is!

I like the big, fluffy drop dumplings but my daughter is partial to the rolled, southern style dumplings. They are a little more time consuming but so tasty! You'll need about 2 quarts of broth. Homemade is best but if you don't have time, make sure you buy a good quality broth. I'm partial to Pacific Natural Foods Organic Free Range Low Sodium broth. That is a mouth full! Also, I am trying to get my family to eat veggies so I sneak them in where I can. No, this isn't a true Southern style Chicken and Dumplings recipe. Deal with it.

To make the soup base, you pretty much just dump all the stuff into a large pot. Its pretty straight forward. Hold off until the end to add any salt or pepper though. After everything is in the pot and on its way to bubbling along happily, make the dumplings.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and garlic if you choose to use it (and I strongly recommend that you do!). Scoop out about 1/3 cup shortening with your hand and start mixing it into the flour. With your hands. Get messy. Playing with your food is fun! Add a little more shortening if needed. Your flour mixture should look like course bread crumbs.

Make a well in the center of the flour and pour in about 1/3 cup of the milk and mix together. With your hands. Slowly add in more milk until the mixture comes together. Don't add too much or it will become too sticky! Well, you could add more milk and make it sticky then just drop the dumplings by the spoonful into the bubbling soup. Then you'd be done and you could skip down to the actual recipe. Otherwise, read on!

Once the dough comes together, dump it out onto a flour covered board or counter and knead for a few minutes.

Mine was a little too dry. I had to add another tablespoon of milk. Knead the dough until its kinda smooth or your hands give out. Mine usually looks like a brain. Mmm tasty.

Roll the dough out until its about 1/8" thick. The dumplings will plump in the broth while cooking. Dust both sides of the rolled out dough with flour then cut into 1"-ish rectangles.

Carefully move the dumplings over to the bubbling pot of chickeny goodness and drop in a few at a time. Don't crowd the dumplings and try to drop them in one by one in different parts of the pot. Otherwise they stick together and that just isn't good. DO NOT STIR for a couple of minutes.

Let it boil away happily over a medium heat for about 10 minutes stirring once or twice then turn off the heat. Let it sit for about 15 minutes. Don't touch it. You'll be rewarded.

Ok, now you can add salt and pepper to taste.

And you can dig in.

 

Yes, I made that picture huge.

 

 So on to the recipe!



Southern-ish Style Chicken and Dumplings

64 ounces chicken broth
2-3 cups shredded chicken
1 cup fresh carrots, sliced
1 cup celery, chopped
1 cup white or yellow onion, chopped
1 bay leaf
1 big pinch dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup shortening

about 1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon garlic powder, optional