Bacon Cupcakes?

I like to bring treats to my coworkers on their birthdays.  Last week a coworker had a birthday and I made these really cute "ice cream sundae cupcakes" to bring in then the weather hit.  We had arguably the worst winter storm so far this year.  It started the day before with rain that turned to sleet that turned to snow and just didn't stop snowing.  We got close to a foot of snow at our house.  It started out so wet that the tree branches were coated then froze and we lost several big branches and one whole tree.  The roads were sheets of ice, it was ugly.

Lucky for me I have the ability to work from home when necessary.  I deemed that day necessary!  So the ice cream sundae cupcakes went to the neighbor boys who help us around the house and the yard and with the dogs.

I promised treats the following Monday.  His manager told me that this person's favorite saying is "everything is better with bacon" and he was even nice enough to send me a link to a recipe for French Toast and Bacon Cupcakes.  I had to make them.

Here is a link to the recipe:
French Toast and Bacon Cupcakes

Before you can do anything you have to cook the bacon.  The person who published the recipe microwaved her bacon.  No offence but, yuck.  I baked my bacon.  Maybe it took longer but I know it tasted better.

I cut a couple of slices into about one-inch pieces for garnish, the rest was crumbled up and put in the batter.

One batch makes 14 cupcakes.  I knew I needed at least 24 so I made a double batch.  I only put the cooked bacon in one batch, yes, I was skeptical, why ruin two batches?

After they baked you couldn't tell the "with bacon" from the "without bacon" by looks so it didn't impact baking at all.  I did use different cupcake papers for the ones with bacon so I could tell people which were which.

The cupcakes are frosted with a maple butter cream frosting then garnished with the pieces of bacon.

So how did they taste?  I am not a fan of maple so for me they were only OK.  The added bacon wasn't terrible but I'm not sure, for me, it added anything other than novelty.  My husband LOVED them.  He is a huge maple fan and with maple in the cupcake and the frosting, well he was in heaven.  There were four extra cupcakes, he ate them all!

My coworkers loved them too.  The ones with bacon disappeared before the ones without and everyone raved about the maple butter cream.  I'll have to remember that when I'm looking for a unique frosting flavor!