Bacon-Laced Chocolate Cupcakes
So, next in my cooking adventures, I wanted to try making bacon-laced chocolate cupcakes.
Before you say anything, this wasn't just my idea, I actually saw a recipe in a magazine for it. No, I don't remember what magazine. But I swear it's true! I-- oh, wait, that's right, Google exists. Let's see if I can find it . . .
Right, it apparently was Better Homes and Gardens, but please don't take that as advertisement for their magazine. My mom gets it, I don't, I was just flipping through because I was bored. :P
Anyway! That recipe looked like way too much work, doing it from scratch and all, so I modified it. I bought a box of ready-made chocolate cake mix (the kind you just add water, eggs, and a buttload of vegetable oil to), some ready-made chocolate frosting, and some BACON.
Yes.
So I got the instant-mix all made up (there may or may not have been an incident where the metal brand button on the end of my electric mixer decided to FALL OFF and INTO the batter while it was mixing and attempt to grind itself into oblivion . . .) and while the cupcakes were baking in the oven, I fried three pieces of bacon, drained off the grease, and chopped the bacon up into fine bits. (The smell of chocolate cupcakes and bacon cooking simultaneously certainly was an interesting experience.) Then I got about two generous tablespoons (perhaps a bit more) of chocolate frosting and mixed some bacon drippings in with it, since the recipe I had found had suggested to do so. I tasted the mixture, but the taste of the frosting was way too overpowering for the drippings to make any difference. I could tell it wouldn't matter how much bacon grease I used, it wouldn't matter. Anyway, that ready-made shelf-stable chocolate frosting has tons of oil already in it, I didn't want to add much more. So I just mixed in two pieces of bacon's worth of bacon bits into the mixture. Then I frosted one of the cupcakes with it, and gave it a taste-test.
It's . . . surprisingly not revolting. Actually, my main concern was that you wouldn't be able to taste the bacon anyway, so it wouldn't matter, because chocolate is so strong. But you actually can taste the bacon bits! The combination is fascinating. I mean, bacon . . . chocolate . . . what's not to love?
I'm gonna try to take some to a potlock-type thing, although I did make some non-bacon ones as well, since I figured I ought to warn any potential vegetarians or people who don't feel quite so adventurous. I mean, sure, it would be amusing to give one to somebody without warning them (you can't see the bacon at all in it, it just looks like mildly lumpy frosting), but I'd only try that on a non-vegetarian friend of mine who I knew well enough to be cruel to.
Anyway, it was a surprisingly very effective recipe. If anyone tries to do this, I recommend not being afraid to mix a lot of bacon in with the chocolate frosting. (You may wince in horror the first time you dump the bacon bits into the chocolate frosting, since something feels fundamentally Not Right about it, but you gotta push past that.) I added some more after my taste test, so it was two and a half pieces of bacon in roughly two tablespoons of frosting, but it's easy to just eye it and add the desired amount. You'll want enough so you can actually taste the bacon, after all-- I can tell from the original recipe I looked at, there did not seem a high enough bacon-to-frosting ratio to really get that bacon . . . baconness. XD
BACON!
Before you say anything, this wasn't just my idea, I actually saw a recipe in a magazine for it. No, I don't remember what magazine. But I swear it's true! I-- oh, wait, that's right, Google exists. Let's see if I can find it . . .
Right, it apparently was Better Homes and Gardens, but please don't take that as advertisement for their magazine. My mom gets it, I don't, I was just flipping through because I was bored. :P
Anyway! That recipe looked like way too much work, doing it from scratch and all, so I modified it. I bought a box of ready-made chocolate cake mix (the kind you just add water, eggs, and a buttload of vegetable oil to), some ready-made chocolate frosting, and some BACON.
Yes.
So I got the instant-mix all made up (there may or may not have been an incident where the metal brand button on the end of my electric mixer decided to FALL OFF and INTO the batter while it was mixing and attempt to grind itself into oblivion . . .) and while the cupcakes were baking in the oven, I fried three pieces of bacon, drained off the grease, and chopped the bacon up into fine bits. (The smell of chocolate cupcakes and bacon cooking simultaneously certainly was an interesting experience.) Then I got about two generous tablespoons (perhaps a bit more) of chocolate frosting and mixed some bacon drippings in with it, since the recipe I had found had suggested to do so. I tasted the mixture, but the taste of the frosting was way too overpowering for the drippings to make any difference. I could tell it wouldn't matter how much bacon grease I used, it wouldn't matter. Anyway, that ready-made shelf-stable chocolate frosting has tons of oil already in it, I didn't want to add much more. So I just mixed in two pieces of bacon's worth of bacon bits into the mixture. Then I frosted one of the cupcakes with it, and gave it a taste-test.
It's . . . surprisingly not revolting. Actually, my main concern was that you wouldn't be able to taste the bacon anyway, so it wouldn't matter, because chocolate is so strong. But you actually can taste the bacon bits! The combination is fascinating. I mean, bacon . . . chocolate . . . what's not to love?
I'm gonna try to take some to a potlock-type thing, although I did make some non-bacon ones as well, since I figured I ought to warn any potential vegetarians or people who don't feel quite so adventurous. I mean, sure, it would be amusing to give one to somebody without warning them (you can't see the bacon at all in it, it just looks like mildly lumpy frosting), but I'd only try that on a non-vegetarian friend of mine who I knew well enough to be cruel to.
Anyway, it was a surprisingly very effective recipe. If anyone tries to do this, I recommend not being afraid to mix a lot of bacon in with the chocolate frosting. (You may wince in horror the first time you dump the bacon bits into the chocolate frosting, since something feels fundamentally Not Right about it, but you gotta push past that.) I added some more after my taste test, so it was two and a half pieces of bacon in roughly two tablespoons of frosting, but it's easy to just eye it and add the desired amount. You'll want enough so you can actually taste the bacon, after all-- I can tell from the original recipe I looked at, there did not seem a high enough bacon-to-frosting ratio to really get that bacon . . . baconness. XD
BACON!