Maple French Toast and Bacon Cupcakes

Maple French Toast and Bacon Cupcake

My second cupcake has one of the greatest foods of all time involved.... BACON! I got the recipe off of the Pass the Sushi blog through Pinterest. The original recipe is on the Food Network website.
This cupcake was not hard to make at all, just hard to find the ingredients needed. No, for real. Cake Flour? And potato starch? Do what? They had one brand of cake flour at Ralph's, and zero potato starch. So I used corn starch instead, and it didn't seem like much of a difference. Another different ingredient I used was microwavable bacon. I know, I know. Terrible. But I've never actually cooked real bacon before, and I wasn't about to try the same day I was doing cupcakes. So this might have effected the final product some.

I found nine people to try this cupcake, and seven said they'd eat it again. I was one of the two that would not, actually. It tasted just like french toast, which was great, but it was way too dense for me. Some people like that in a cupcake, I unfortunately do not. I like the light and fluffy types. Also, a lot of people said they couldn't taste the bacon flavor. I think if I had actually cooked bacon then it might of had a more bacon flavor. 

Other than that, everyone loved it. But I don't think I'll make this one again. I definitely loved all the funny looks I got when I told people it was a bacon cupcake, though :)

You can tell how dense the cupcake was going to be by how thick the batter was.

You can see the bacon bits in the batter.

The icing was really thin, so I didn't add very much to the tops. But that ended up being okay because it might of been too sweet with too much icing on top.

Cherry Coke Float Cupcakes

Cherry Coke Float Cupcake

The first cupcake on the agenda was the Cherry Coke Float Cupcake. I almost did the whole thing by myself. Had a little help from the sister, mostly with baking vocabulary I'm still learning... like 'pipe the whip cream'... um yeah. But I'm getting there! I found the recipe on The Novice Chef blog, but used the adapted recipe from the Brown Eyed Baker blog. It was perfect, because she already had the recipe cut in half for me.

It turned out well for my first try. It was in one piece so that's good, right? I was able to find seven people to try the cupcake. Out of the seven, five people said they would have another one if I made it for another occasion. Although, my sister would never turn down a cupcake. It's against her beliefs. Some of the cons of the cupcake included: being difficult to eat (super crumbly and gooey) and not enough of a Coke flavor. Also, it's important that you like cherry pie filling.

I don't think I'd make this cupcake again, but I really enjoyed baking it. It was a good cupcake to start with because it had so many different steps. I feel like I could tackle anything now... Almost.

The cake part came out a little more chocolate flavored than Coke flavored.

Cutting out the centers of the cupcakes was the part I was most nervous about. I put two cherries in each with a little extra of the creamy pie filling (it definitely could of done without the extra). The glaze was a little too runny, so I added more sugar. It might of absorbed into the cake more without the extra pie filling.

I used Maraschino Cherries because they're easy and delicious. 

The Beginning Of The Beginning

First things first, I am not a baker. Or a cook. I'm actually not very good at either. Yet. That's why I'm doing this blog. I need to get some of those domestic skills down. Each week I'm going to try to bake a different kind of cupcake. I'll tell you all my ups and downs, and even get some outside opinions on the cupcakes. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I hopefully enjoy doing it.

- Jenny