Beer and Bacon Cupcakes

Beer and Bacon Cupcakes. Yep, you read right. Beer and bacon cupcakes. I know it sounds strange, but it's a chocolate cupcake topped with maple glazed BACON so don't knock it until you've tried it. I came across this recipe while trying to bake a birthday treat for a male friends 21st birthday, and quickly discovered that these would be perfect. Though my vegetarian choices bar me from eating such cupcakes, I do love the smell of bacon so I'm pleased to say that at least that much was enjoyable.

So yes dreams do come true, Beer and bacon cupcakes. Some people love cupcakes. And it's pretty hard to find someone that doesn't like bacon, so this dessert is a win-win. Complete with a Guinness chocolate cupcake, maple cream cheese frosting and maple glazed bacon these might just provide a definition for the American Dream. Savory as well as sweet these cupcakes can please even the manliest of men. Recipe below, please enjoy. 

And there's that bacon I mentioned earlier. Personally maple glazed and baked, be sure to watch it carefully as you'll have to redrizzle the maple syrup quite frequently and it easily burns if left unattended. I will warn you that your whole house is about to smell amazing. 

And no worries about above mentioned alcohol content, the first step for the cupcakes is to heat the butter, Guinness and chocolate chips, causing all alcohol to cook off. (And if it was the actual cooking off that you were worried about, my apologies. No tipsy cupcakes for you). In addition to that, if you choose not to use Guiness at all, I'm sure these cupcakes would be fine with some sort of dark cola like Coke as well. 

And here I give wonderful stirring credit to my roommate Miss Maddie T. Fair warning, this batter does seem like its a little dry, and almost a little spongy but just be sure that they bake long enough and it shouldn't be a problem.

And here they are, the pheNOMNOMNOMenal guinness cupcakes.

And finally: the finished product. Nobody can really argue with a cupcake that looks this good. 

Seriously, these are pretty beautiful. So I figured lots of pictures were appropriate. Now that your mouth is probably watering, I should probably let you know how to make them. 

Ingredients:

Cupcakes

1 cup Guinness (or 1 cup Coca Cola)

1 stick butter

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 cup chocolate chips

2 cups flour

1-1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

2/3 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 tsp vanilla extract

Maple-Glazed Bacon

3 strips bacon

1/3 cup maple syrup

Frosting

8oz block cream cheese, softened

1 stick butter, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tbsp maple syrup

1 tbsp candied bacon drippings

Directions:

For the cupcakes:

Preheat oven to 350. 

Melt the butter and Guinness on the stove until they become one liquid mixture. (Note that if you choose to use Coke you should add it after you have added the mixture to the eggs and yogurt as I'm not sure how it would fare on the stovetop). Add the cocoa powder and the chocolate chips, and continue to stir until everything has melted together. Set aside to cool. 

In a new bowl mix the eggs and greek yogurt together. Add the chocolate-guinness mixture to the eggs and yogurt. (This is when you would add the Coke if you are using it in place of the Guinness). Make sure to do this slowly, as any heat in the chocolate will cook the eggs if added all at once. Add the dry ingredients to the bowl and stir wet and dry ingredients together. 

Bake for about 15 minutes and allow your cupcakes to cool while you cook the bacon. 

For the bacon:

WARNING, your house is about to smell delicious. 

Turn oven up to 375.

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and lay your bacon strips on the foil. Using a pastry brush (or if you dont have one you can use the back of a spoon) cover each piece of bacon with a layer of maple syrup. It's good to use a Rimmed baking sheet for this step, as you'll be saving the bacon grease for use in your frosting (yes you read that right, bacon grease IN the frosting).

Bake for 5 minutes, re-apply some maple syrup and bake 5 minutes more. Flip the strips over, re-apply maple syrup once again and bake for another 10 minutes. One more time, brush you bacon with maple syrup and bake for another 10 minutes

In a large bowl, beat together butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add the maple syrup, followed by the bacon grease. Add the powdered sugar a little at a time until you have a thick and creamy consistency. 

Finally, crush and crumble your bacon and sprinkle over the top of your freshly frosted cupcakes. 

I have no doubt you'll enjoy these. Only because this is America, and these cupcakes have bacon. 

Nomnomnom until next time. 

Recipe credit to: http://www.justputzing.com/2012/06/chocolate-beer-batter-cupcakes-with-maple-bacon-frosting.html

PMS Cookies

When I originally found this recipe, they were titled PMS cookies. And while I have to say they would definitely do the trick for PMS, I dont think they should be "that time of the month" cookies, I think they should be "ANY time of the month cookies" because I could eat them all day every day.  And these cookies definitely aren't gender biased because I promise that EVERYONE, male or female, will love them.

And believe it or not I haven't even gotten to the best part yet. In total, this recipe only cost me around 5 dollahs. Talk about wonderful. Super simple, super inexpensive, and super delicious. Doesn't get much better than that.

The only special instructions for assembly is that preparing all of the cookies, one half at a time is the easiest way to get these cookies to come together nicely. You may be thinking this is a very obvious statement, but I promise had I not advised you otherwise you would have spent quite a bit of time struggling to spread mallow fluff on top of peanut butter. From personal experience, that does NOT work. At all. So save yourself some time and prepare all at once before smashing together.

Speaking of ease, the chocolate dipping is probably the least easy part. It gets messy, but the best way I've found is to dunk the cookies rotate them with your (squeaky clean of course) hands before pulling them out and quickly transferring to a sheet of parchment paper. Warning though, the chocolate can be very hot. Feel free to allow it to cool a bit after it melts (this would be advised actually), you'll still have plenty of time to dunk the mallow-pb-cracker-combos before the chocolate hardens again.

And voila! I'm regretting that I didn't get a prettier picture of these, but honestly this is one cookie where aesthetics don't matter, because they taste phenomenal either way. Allow the cookies to cool and harden, then feel free to indulge. It's also good to know that they taste even better when you freeze them. So stock up, they could last you quite a while (or they won't if you live in a house with 5 other women). In any case, enjoy the recipe below.

Ingredients:

about 2 sleeves ritz crackers (or great value "buttery rounds")

1/2 cup Marshmallow Fluff

1 cup peanut butter

1 package almond bark

Instructions: 

Spread Marshmallow Fluff and peanut butter between two crackers and dip in melted almond bark. Lay finished cookies on parchment paper to cool. Store at room temperature (acceptable), in the fridge (a little better) or in the freezer (phenomenal-- and highly recommended).

Nomnomnom til next time. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Classically wombo-ed, I'm hoping everything I make with this newly created blog will be not only pheNOMenal, but also delicious. I should note that I'm definitely the kind of blog reader that just scrolls to the bottom as quickly as possible to find the recipe. If thats the case with you as well, no offense taken if you choose to scroll all the way to the bottom. Though there are few helpful tidbits inbetween :)


When my baking addiction began, I found myself straying from the typical, making things like "double chocolate peanut butter fudge nutella cinnamon bites." Maybe that was an exaggeration, but really I just avoided average cookies, recipes that I felt were exhausted. As I began to bake more though, I found myself wanting to make the BEST chocolate chip cookie that I could, rather than the most cracked out chocolate chip cookie anyone had ever made. And who doesn't like chocolate chip cookies? So I figured I would start with a chocolate chip cookie that is definitely a contender for the best.

I should start by saying that the best chocolate chip cookie is extremely subjective. My top 2 requirements: soft and chewy. And I suppose they should be delicious. This cookie happens to be all of those things. And they also happen to be vegan.

There were a couple odd things about this recipe, the first being that there was both whole wheat and all purpose flour. If all that you have is all purpose, don't fret too much and feel free to use two cups of all purpose instead of two of each. Though I do believe the whole wheat four added to the wonderful chewiness. 

 The second oddity for this recipe, no granulated sugar, only brown. And only 1/2 cup. Odd, but low on sugar is always fine by me.

And of course, because it's vegan lots and lots of things to help the dough form and rise. A teaspoon of each baking powder and soda. Best not to forget things like this. 

As far as skimping on ingredients go, the recipe I found called for only 1/2 cup of chocolate chips. If you're anything like me in the amount of chocolate you like in your cookie, you'll definitely need to make that a heaping half of a cup, and in addition to that perhaps add a couple more handfuls. Amount of chocolate chips is something up to you. Though I personally prefer many many many of them. 

Fair warning, when the recipe has you mix all of the wet ingredients together, your soymilk is not going to mix well with your oil at first. And it will look a little nasty. Not to worry though, give it a quick stir when all of your ingredients are in the bowl and you should have no problem getting them to appear as pictured below:

Another warning, this dough may look a little bit drier than the usual cookie dough. If you need to you can add a little bit of extra soymilk though its okay to leave the dough a bit dry, and mixing it with your hands is also encouraged. 

Make sure to form all of the balls well with your hands, about the size of a golf ball is best, also good to press the dough down a little bit as these cookies won't expand too much unless they're encouraged a bit.

Bake and voila! Cookies, cookies, cookies!

The cookies only bake for about 10 minutes, but watch them carefully, when cooked perfectly the dough is extremely chewy, but burning them at all can make them very dry.

I should also add that I was going to make these cookies to share at the super bowl party that was taking place at my house but making cookies for a party 3 days early is never a good idea. I tripled the recipe, making around 2 1/2 dozen cookies, but lets just say they didn't last very long. But hey the good news is, I get to bake more, and therefore blog and share more. And finally,  a recipe. Enjoy :)

Recipe

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/3 cup canola oil
1/4 cup non-dairy milk (I used vanilla soy)
2 tsp. vanilla
2 tbsp molasses

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix the flours, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and chocolate chips in a large bowl. Mix oil, soymilk, vanilla and molasses in a separate bowl. Once combined, stir into dry ingredients. Once everything is mostly combined you may have to complete mixing with your hands.

Place golf ball sized cookie dough onto greased baking sheet, with about 2-3 inches between. Press the dough flat a before baking for about 10 minutes. Watch the cookies carefully as over baking can easily make them very dry.


And all thats left to do is enjoy.

Nomnomnom til next time.


recipe credited to: http://www.yourdailyvegan.com/2012/11/13/simple-quick-chocolate-chip-cookies/