Fudgey Bacon and Pecan Blondies

Bacon. Bacon is great. In fact, most pork products are pretty fabulous. It's just a shame that it's one of the most fatty meats you can eat so we don't have it often, but occasionally I'll treat Pete and I to a tasty bacon sandwich for breakfast or a dinner of sausage and mash. However until now we had not tried bacon in a sweet baked recipe or dessert.

It's a pretty big thing in the USA right now - fancy a bacon, banana and peanut butter cupcake? Or maybe the famous 'Maple Glazed Bacon Apple Donut' from Dynamo Donut and Coffee in San Francisco? If you browse for some sweet treats on Etsy.com you're sure to come across chocolate covered bacon or bacon chocolate truffles.

As Pete and I are pretty addicted to Food Network we were made aware of these combos awhile ago and have always been curious as to whether it actually it good. My salted caramel cupcakes are awesome, so surely the salty bacon mixed with something sweet like chocolate would be great? Well, it is. Really really great actually. So great that I'll probably spend the next few weeks adding bacon to everything I cook - I'm now fairly sure that bacon will indeed enhance any recipe known to man.

There isn't so much bacon in these delicious slices so it's overpowering. You won't get a bit of bacon in every bite, but now and again you'll hit a chunk and be taken to heaven. The saltiness works SO well with the sweetness of the fudge and the creamy rich pecan nuts. I could indeed eat the entire tray if I didn't think that it would make me look like the very animal you get pork products from. Please try it, even if you think it sounds wrong. These blondies are so very very right.

Bacon on your creme brulee ma'am? Why yes, yes please.

Fudgey Bacon and Pecan Blondies
Makes 18 delicious squares

Ingredients
225g unsalted butter, melted
430g soft brown sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
280g plain flour
100g pecans, roughly chopped
100g vanilla fudge, roughly chopped
3 rashes of bacon, grilled until the fat is crispy and then chopped into little chunks

Method
Preheat the oven to 180 C / 350 F and line a 9" x 13"deep sided baking pan (or something similar) with greaseproof paper.

Whisk together the melted butter and sugar until well combined, then add the eggs and vanilla extract and mix until smooth.

Sift together the baking powder, salt and flour and then beat into the sugar mixture for 2-3 minutes. Fold in the pecans, fudge and bacon pieces.

Spread evenly into the prepared tin and bake for 30-35 minutes until the top is crisp and golden but the inside is still moist. Slide a knife into the center and if it comes out pretty much clean with perhaps a couple of crumbs it's ready.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 15 minutes before removing from the pan and cutting into squares. It's really good warm, and really good cooled. Store in an airtight container.

Some bacon-licious links!

Woodhouse Farm - A Leicestershire based producer of excellent home reared meats including bacon, you can order online for delivery or they have a storefront you can visit.

Bacon Salt - The stuff of legends, shake it onto anything and make it taste like bacon. Bacon chips. Bacon chicken. Bacon steak. Bacon popcorn. Bacon with extra bacon-y flavour! Buy it online in 8 different flavours including original, maple, applewood, jalapeno and more!

Baconnaise - From the people that invented bacon salt, you can now buy bacon flavour mayonnaise! Comes in regular or lite versions, I am yet to try this stuff but shall be purchasing very soon to slather onto everything I can think of.

The Bacon Explosion - A truly ridiculous recipe for teh hardcore bacon lover. I do not condone anyone ever eat this as it contains 5000 calories and 500g of fat. Heart fail.

Love Food Hate Waste's Bacon Recipes - This is a really great site showing you how to turn leftovers into delicious a new meal along with proper portion sizes, food storage tips and more. This link takes you to the bacon recipe ideas but go to the homepage here for more frugal fun.

Mad Hatter Cupcakes and Free Downloadable Toppers

Firstly, I'd like to apologise for being absent for a few weeks. It's been a bit of a crazy one at work and at home and then we had to spend last weekend in Liverpool. Don't ask me about it, we had an awful time and I may explode with anger when ranting about it. The only good things to come of it were buying a sprinkle covered pretzel, visiting Tate Liverpool and the Picasso exhibit, M&S chocolate brownie dessert and finally, finding this postcard in Paperchase.

See that cake that the birds are sitting in? That's a Saint Honore cake from legendary french patisserie Laduree. That's a pricey cake right there. So who the hell would think to cut it open, drain out the rose creme patissiere and stick some fake birds in it? That's the kind of imagination I could only wish to have. Props to you crazy bird cake person, whoever you may be.

FYI the pretzel tasted pretty lame, but boy was it pretty. I'm a sucker for anything with sprinkles on, although to be honest I'm not big on the taste.

But anyway, back to the cupcakes. I had been pretty stuck on what recipe to do this week, I wanted it to be a goodie as I've missed a few weeks and when the lovely Tara called to order some cupcakes for a Mad Hatters Tea Party my mind got a whirring. Of course they'd have to be a little crazy, but not so crazy that they tasted gross. Visual kookiness was key and I think I hit that combination of looking pretty but tame from the outside and containing a lovely surprise inside.

I ended up trying Hummingbird Bakery's standard vanilla cake recipe which is a good standby, not as good as my go to vanilla but still tasty and pretty moist. The frosting was a combination of vanilla flavoured white and strawberry flavoured grey swirled together. And what was the surprise inside? Well here you go...

Mad Hatter's Rainbow Vanilla Cupcakes
Makes 12 standard American size cupcakes
Recipe adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook by Tarek Malouf

Ingredients
120g plain flour
140g caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
40g unsalted butter at room temperature
120ml milk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tsp each of blue, red, green and yellow food colourings
extra plain flour for thickening the coloured batter if needed

Method
Preheat the oven to 170 C / 325 F.

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter until it reaches a sandy consistency and everything is combined. Gradually pour in half the milk and mix until well incorporated.

Whisk the egg, vanilla extract and remaining milk in a seperate bowl and then add to the flour mixture. Beat until well combined, scraping down the bowl sides if needed and then mixing for a further few minutes until the mixture is thickened and smooth.

Divide the mixture equally between four bowls. One at a time tint the batters with the food colourings, the strength of colour varies depending on which make of food dye you use. Gel colourings are best as they are more concentrated and therefore need less adding to give a good bright hue.

Add one teaspoon of colouring at a time, you want a really vivid colour to the batters. If when the correct colour is achieved the mixture is quite thin add more flour a tablespoon at a time until it is back to the consistency it was before adding the dye.

Split each colour of batter between twelve standard American cupcake cases so that there is a little of each of the four colours in each one - you should end up with something like the image below.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until the tops are slightly browned and the cake springs right back when touched. Leave to cool thoroughly before frosting.

Vanilla and Strawberry Monotone Frosting
Makes enough to generously frost 12 cupcakes with a little leftover

Ingredients
500g sifted icing sugar
160g unsalted butter at room temperature
50ml milk
1/2tsp vanilla extract
1-2 drops concentrated strawberry flavouring oil
1-2 tsp black food colouring

Large 14" piping bag
Extra large closed star tip
Card suit sugar sprinkles
Gold edible glitter
12 Eat Me cupcake toppers - link below

Method
Beat the butter and half the icing sugar until well combined, then add the milk and remaining sugar. Mix until smooth and thoroughly combined and then divide between two bowls. Add the vanilla to one and mix thoroughly. Next add the black food colouring to the second bowl along with the concentrated strawberry flavouring oil and beat until smooth and there are no streaks in the colour.

Put both the colours of frosting into the piping bag trying to keep one colour to each side of the bag in order to give a good stripe. Squeeze the icing out of the bag until you start to see the stripe in the icing and then frost the cupcakes squeezing the bag gently and using a circular motion so as to cover the cakes completely.

Sprinkle or place on the card suit sprinkles as quickly as possible so they stick before the frosting starts to set and then add a little shake of gold edible glitter to each. Stick an Eat Me cake topped into the centre of each frosting swirl and arrange on a lovely platter ready for a wonderfully mad tea party.

Notes
I use a brand of gel food colours called Americolor which I order from an amazing US website called Bake It Pretty - click here for a link to the product on their website. You should browse www.bakeitpretty.com anyway, it's such a gorgeous site!

You can also buy the concentrated flavouring oils from there site - click here for a link. You can use them to flavour just about anything - cakes, frostings, chocolate, fudge, candy, drinks, cookies and much much more.

Eat Me Cupcake Toppers - Ok guys, click here or on the image below for a link to the downloadable cupcake topper templates.

I cut mine out using a 2" scalloped circle paper punch which you can get from several online craft shops and stuck them together with a cocktail stick between using double sided tape.

I bought my card suit sprinkles from eBay along with the gold edible glitter and my black cupcake cases.

If any of you give them a try do send me photos of your results!!!

Baking Update and Wonderful Tea!

Just a quick update of some of the orders I've had recently...

Chocolate and vanilla mini cupcakes.



Chocolate mini cupcakes.



Vanilla mini cupcakes.



Double chocolate layer cake.



Pink vanilla macarons with milk chocolate ganache. My first attempt at macarons!



And this is just a photo of the coolest tea around! Mr Scruff tea!!! My friends Jon and Sarah bought it from a local health store, Mr Scruff is a musician you should check out if you don't know who he is.