bacon

These cupcakes are so friggin’ amazing.

When Price and I finished our 2nd Whole30 at the end of April these were our big treat to celebrate completing it. And they were such a great way to celebrate!

As your diet while doing Whole30 is quite limited (amazing, but limited), you really should slowly introduce foods one at a time slowly while going back and forth to the Whole30 diet guidelines to see if things bother you. Since we had already (hap hazardly) done one reintroduction to ‘normal’ foods after our first Whole30 in February we just jumped at our chance to stuff our faces with these cupcakes.

They were everything we had been thinking of those long 30 days.

The bacon.

The chocolate

The peanut butter.

Come, on… shut up!

In fact I made these bad boys on Sunday, froze them, thought about them endlessly, and then inhaled a thawed Cupcake for dessert on Friday. They held up really, really well. Now I am scheming on making more and more cupcakes to freeze so we always have something sweet on hand. I’m thinking I need to get a deep freezer! ha!

I was tempted to make a chocolate frosting but at the last moment I asked Price if he thought a peanut butter frosting would be good and he picked that. I think it was the better choice in the end as well.

 

I prefer to cut my bacon before cooking it whenever I am using crumbled bacon in a recipe. I just find it easier to work with. Plus, I prefer the bigger pieces of bacon in the cupcake. If you don’t want ‘big’ pieces then feel free to cook the bacon and then chop it up, you’ll get a more crumbly bacon that way.

One thing to note when making them is that the batter is pretty thin, compared to most other cake batters I have made. Do not worry! They come out perfectly.

I mean, what’s better than a chocolatey cupcake studded with bacon topped off with a light and fluffy peanut butter buttercream!?!?

Dark Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

Makes 24 cupcakes

Ingredients

For the Cupcakes

• 1 pound bacon
• 2 Cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 Cup cocoa powder
• 2 Cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• 1 Cup cold coffee, preferably strong
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

For the Frosting

• 1/2 Cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2/3 Cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2- 2/3 Cup milk
• 6 Cups confectioners sugar

• 1 Tablespoon Cocoa Powder, for dusting

Process

1. To make the cupcakes, begin by preheating the oven to 375 degrees F. Fill 2 12-cup cupcake pans with liners.
2. Using a scissor, cut the bacon into 1/4″ wide pieces. Cook the bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium-high heat until evenly brown. Drain and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
4. Pour in the eggs, coffee, buttermilk and oil into the dry ingredients mixture. Stir just until blended. Mix in 3/4 of the bacon, reserving the rest for garnish.
5. Spoon the batter into the prepared cups, dividing evenly. 
6. Bake 20-25 minutes, until the tops spring back when lightly pressed. Cool for 15 minutes in the pan prior to removing a wire rack. When cool, frost the cupcakes. 
7. To make the frosting, beat the butter until light and fluffy.
8. Top with the remaining bacon and then dust with the additional cocoa powder.

Cupcake sourced from All Recipes, frosting by I am a Honey Bee

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