A few years ago, I experienced a maple bacon donut. DH and I were at the LA County fair, and it was the featured food. And it was amazing! First of all, it was as big as your face. The enormity of it alone made it fun, but really it was the crispy warm freshness that made it especially good. It was the perfect balance of fried, sweet, and salty. It is the epitome of fair food.
There’s my hot hubby showing off that wonderful donut! I wasn’t exaggerating when I said it’s as big as you’re face.
Since then, I have started to see maple bacon desserts in various forms all over the place. They all look so fun, so a couple years ago, I tried a maple bacon cupcake recipe myself. But that recipe was too involved and I haven’t done it again since. Recently, however, I happened to have about six pieces of cooked bacon that we didn’t have a specific plan for, so DH suggested I make maple bacon cupcakes again. I decided to go for it, but instead of following the old complicated recipe I used before, I wanted to keep it simple and experiment. Here’s what I did.
Cupcake Ingredients
- One Box White or Vanilla Cake Mix
- 2 Eggs
- 1/3 Cup Vanilla or Plain Greek Yogurt
- 1 1/2 Tsp Maple Extract
- 1/2 Cup Real Maple Syrup
- 6 Pieces of Cooked Bacon
Cupcake Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a cupcake pan with paper liners.
- Mix first five ingredients in a medium mixing bowl until incorporated (careful not to over mix). Batter will be thick. Crush up the bacon and add to batter. Mix briefly.
- Spoon batter into cupcake pan to be two thirds full. Bake for 20-25 minutes until tops are dry. When finished, allow to cool completely before frosting.
*Recipe makes 12 cupcakes
Frosting Ingredients
- 1/4 Cup Butter, softened
- 6 0z. Cream Cheese, softened
- 1/2 tsp. Vanilla Extract
- 1 tsp. Maple Extract
- 1 tsp. Salt
- 1 lb Powdered Sugar
- 1-4 Tbs. Milk, as needed
Frosting Directions
- In stand mixer, cream together butter and cream cheese until smooth and fully incorporated. Add extracts and salt and continue mixing.
- With mixer on low speed, gradually add sugar. Once sugar is added, frosting may be crumbly and pasty. Continue mixing and add milk one tablespoon at a time until desired consistency it reached.
- Spoon frosting into a ziplock back and seal. Cut a corner off the bag, and pipe onto cupcakes as desired.
