Dark Chocolate and Bacon Cupcakes

This week was someone's birthday at Colby's office, and they always have a little potluck to celebrate. I stumbled upon a recipe for chocolate cupcakes with bacon, fitting since Colby works at a pork processing plant.

I had to start by cooking the bacon. I like to bake it in the oven. The dogs abandoned their posts as yard guardians once the smell of cooking bacon wafted into the yard. They wanted to come inside real bad.


I'm not going to post the cake recipe, but I can if someone is interested. It had coffee and buttermilk in it. You could certainly use a box cake mix, and I actually prefer boxed cake to homemade. I put the cooked, crispy 12 strips of bacon in the food processor so it would be chopped into small pieces. I stirred it into the cupcakes and baked as usual.


Even though I hadn't yet tasted them, the cupcakes smelled delicious. I waited for them to cool just a bit after baking before I broke one open to have a look...and a taste.


I could taste the bacon's smokiness intensely after I swallowed that first bite, but Colby said most of the people at work didn't even notice. Really? I thought they definitely tasted like bacon.

I topped them with an easy chocolate ganache made of chopped bittersweet chocolate and heavy cream.




Soren, Evie, Colby, and Brody all loved them. The one person who didn't like them was Dade. The one who could eat a whole pound of bacon all by himself didn't like the bacon cupcakes. He said all he tasted was coffee, and that was before he knew there was coffee in the batter.