Maple Bacon Cupcakes

Today is Mark's brother Luke's 22nd Birthday!

Luke is not only Mark's brother but he and his wife are also some of our best friends. Luke is also Annabeth's Godfather.

Brian and Kristi offered to bring dinner down to our house to celebrate and Mark offered us to do dessert. As soon as Mark offered, I thought of a time when Luke and Cassidy took us to a fancy cupcake place in Indianapolis. Luke and Mark both really enjoyed the bacon cupcakes so instead of buying them (they are around $4 each!) I decided to bake them ourselves.

I found this recipe (midway down the page) on LDS Living's website. It looked very close to what we had eaten at the cupcake place and also fairly simple. So, this morning Annabeth and I included baking cupcakes in our homeschool lesson.

I did modify the original recipe some, here's mine:

Maple Bacon Cupcakes

Vanilla Nutmeg Cupcakes:

1 box white cake mix

1½ tsp. nutmeg

2 jumbo eggs

⅓ C. oil

¾ C. milk

¾ C. sour cream

1 T. vanilla extract

Maple Buttercream:

1 C. butter, softened

4 T. milk

4 C. powdered sugar

2 tsp. maple flavoring

6 slices cooked bacon for garnish

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 and line pans with cupcake liners.

2. Sift cake mix and nutmeg into a bowl; set aside.

3. In a large bowl, combine eggs, oil, milk, sour cream, and vanilla extract.

4. Add cake mix and nutmeg mixture; stir until smooth.

5. Fill cupcake liners ¾ full and bake for 17–22 (19 for our oven) minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.

6. For Maple Buttercream: Beat butter for 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl and stir in 1 T. milk. Slowly add powdered sugar until buttercream is the desired consistency. Add maple flavoring; adjust for flavor depending on the brand of flavoring you use.

7. Pipe onto cooled cupcakes; top with crumbled bacon to give cupcakes a salty and crunchy taste.

Made 20 cupcakes. 

Annabeth helped by counting out the cupcake liners

and putting them on the cupcake pan.  

She also helped taste-test the frosting.

She approved!  

 Our finished cupcakes!

I only made a third of them with the bacon on top 

because I was not sure that everyone would like that. 

Happy Birthday Luke!