Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting
Chocolate? Check. Caramel? Check. Bacon? Check. Delicious? Definitely.
I have had these cupcakes bookmarked FOREVER. Literally, they’ve had a star in my Google Reader for a very long time. I even included them in my Top Ten list back in June of 2009. It took me forever to make them and I’m very glad I did.
I made these for our friend’s annual Pirate Party. The bacon provided a salty and smokiness to the cupcakes that balanced the sweetness nicely. And this caramel frosting is my new favorite. It’s awesome. Hubby thoroughly enjoyed licking the beaters and bowl after I made the frosting.
This chocolate cupcakes recipe wasn’t my favorite. I overfilled mine a little bit and the top of the cupcakes looked almost like meringue after they baked. It was also a little flaky and crispy similar to a meringue. I think not overfilling these would have helped that issue, but if I made these again, I might just use a different chocolate cupcake recipe and add bacon to it.
One Year Ago: Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies and Overnight French Toast
Two Years Ago: Raspberry Meringue Cookies
Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes with Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Yield: 24
Ingredients:
For the Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes
200 grams of dark chocolate, chopped
3 sticks butter (340 g), at room temperature
2-1/4 cups sugar (250 g)
8 eggs
1-1/4 cup flour (165 g)
1/4 cup cocoa powder, unsweetened (23 g)
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 pound uncooked bacon
For the Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream
1 1/4 cups sugar (250 g), separated in half (1/2 c + 2 Tbsp per half, or 125 g)
1/4 cup water
1/3 cup heavy cream
6 large egg whites or enough powdered egg whites and water
Pinch of salt
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened and cut into tablespoon-sized pieces
1 tsp vanilla
Directions:
For the Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes
Preheat oven to 350° Fahrenheit.
Cook the bacon until crispy. Chop the bacon into very small pieces and set aside.
Place chocolate and butter in a metal bowl and put the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir until everything is melted.
Remove the bowl from the water and stir in the sugar. Let the mixture cool for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt; set aside.
When the chocolate mixture is cool, beat with an electric mixer or your stand mixer for 3 minutes. The mixture will get just a tad thicker.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 30 seconds between each one. After two or three eggs, the mixture will start to get thicker and shinier.
Once all the eggs are incorporated, add the dry ingredients. Mix on a low speed until the dry ingredients are just incorporated.
Add the bacon and fold it in with a spatula.
Scoop the batter into cupcake cups until 1/2 to 2/3 full.
Bake at 350° Fahrenheit for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool for a few minutes in the pan before removing to a cooling rack.
For the Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Make the caramel
Place half of the sugar and the water in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is clear. Let the syrup come to a boil, washing down the sides with a wet pastry brush if necessary to prevent crystals from forming.
Boil the syrup, swirling occasionally, until it changes color to dark amber (~340° on a candy thermometer).
Immediately remove from the heat (the sugar will burn if it gets to 350°). Carefully add the cream, standing away from the pan since the mixture will bubble a lot. Stir the caramel until smooth and transfer to a heatproof bowl to cool. (I actually put the bowl into an ice bath, stirring occasionally, to help it cool faster.)
While the caramel cools, place the rest of the sugar, the egg whites and the salt in the metal bowl of a standing mixer. Place the bowl over a pan of boiling water. Whisk continuously until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture reaches 140° Fahrenheit.
Fit the standing mixer with the whisk attachment and put the bowl in place. Beat the mixture on medium-high speed until it is stiff.
Reduce the mixer speed to medium-low and begin adding the butter, a tablespoon or two at a time. Beat until the butter is no longer visible, and add in more, until it is all added. At some point it will look curdled and broken, but just keep on beating and beating until it gets smooth again. This could take a few minutes.
Switch to the paddle attachment and add the caramel and vanilla extract. Beat on low until combined and smooth, 3 to 5 minutes.
At this point you can frost your cupcakes, or you can refrigerate the buttercream for up to 2 days. When you want to use it, take it out of the fridge and bring to room temperature, about an hour. Rebeat in a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
Recipe as seen on Scrumptious Photography, cupcakes originally from Chockylit, frosting originally from Martha Stewart
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
loving the baileys idea! mmmmm
I use the same recipe (I think, I’ve had it for years; a standby. I think it was called “Chocolate Fudge Frosting”)
Best thing EVER to do? add a bit of mint extract – it’s very easily my most popular cake filling.. and my favourite icing to eat by the spoonful lol.
I haven’t found the perfect chocolate frosting yet, so I’ll definitely have to try this one!
i definitely, definitely have to try this soon. i can’t get enough of chocolate!
It’s funny about the no milk thing…I was making a new martini recipe that was super strong, so I thought cream would help it become drinkable – but I had no cream, but I did have Vanilla Caramel Coffeemate…it was great!
Ironically, I almost never have milk and always have Bailey’s. Go figure.
Sometimes you really do need a seriously dark chocolatey frosting. This looks absolutely ideal.
you really got into the food styling there — cute pic with the cupcake in the sprinkles.
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This sounds nice – I’ll have to try it one day! Jen, have you tried King Arthur Flour’s Supersimple Chocolate Frosting recipe? It is my favourite recipe (so far) for chocolate frosting – I’d definitely recommend it!
(Sheesh! deleted to fix a typo! Wish there was an edit function :))
Pegster – I have not tried the KA recipe. It looks similar to this chocolate frosting recipe which is delicious!
The think I love about this frosting is the stiffness and the fudgeness.
I like this frosting for when I want something quick. Otherwise, I like to use frosting that involves melted, good chocolate for those special occasions. YUM! I would gobble up your cupcakes in a second.
Great call on the Bailey’s – my mom would love that icing. I am going to try this next time I make cupcakes.
I would never think to sub bailey’s for milk. Brilliant. I love my chocolate desserts to be super chocolaty – this looks great!
LOVE the super pink sprinkles too. So pretty 😀
Oh, I forgot to mention that I’m hosting a giveaway. I wonder if it would come handy in this baking project…
These look great!! I love your photos!! I’ve been searching for a good chocolate-y frosting and I think I might try this!!
Would you mind checking out my blog? 😀 http://ajscookingsecrets.blogspot.com/
I could have definitely used this recipe for my sourdough chocolate cake this week
http://gamereviewwiki.com/bikinibirthday/2010/06/21/day-158-binge-weekend/
i just made this frosting today to go inside some cupcakes using your cone method. and i topped with vanilla buttercream, at my hubby’s request.
let me just say this was so delicious i had to take my whitening strips out early so i could lick my fingers, and then the bowl. then my 15 month old attacked me to lick the spatula. we were all sugar high and happy before dinner.
my hubby said “every day i am happier i married you because of things like this”
Thanks for sharing this recipe!!!
Kris – I love hearing comments like that! Thanks for trusting my recipes enough to try on your hubby!
Mmm this looks fantastic, though the ingredients look similar to another delicious recipe I’ve used before that is pretty soft. I’m guessing it’s the butter temperature. Should it be room temperature here? Thanks!
You definitely want your butter at room temperature so it creams nicely.
I have the Bailey’s..lol but I’m out of cocoa powder. Have you ever tried subbing it with melted chocolate? And if so how much do you use?
Best frosting ever. Perfect taste, texture and color. It was divine. I will never use another chocolate frosting recipe ever again. Thank you very, very much! It is truly a gift. 🙂
Jen,
I am a person who has been cooking from the age of 5 ….lol now i have certin likes loves and disliks lol however i found a revepie i wanted to make and it called for a fudge type frosting…. knowing i didnt have one i liked for this so i started looking friday night and didnt come across your recepie until saturday morning so i got out my ingreadience.. but i didnt have Balies or white milk i had some Cream de Mint and Choc. Milk so i straied a tad from ur recepie …. i used 1/2 stick of butter, and to get 1/3 cup of liquid i used aprox 1/4 cup of Cream de Mint and the rest Choc. Milk. Plus the res of ur ingreadience …..omg this is the best dark choc fudge frosting ive ever had!!!! And i used the best dk. Cocoa i know of !!!!!! Thankyou thankyou THANKYOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m a baker and for the life of me I can’t find a thick chocolate fudge frosting. Is this frosting thick? I don’t want anything too creamy, like ganache when you let it sit. Help please!
beantownbaker — February 4th, 2013 @ 9:45 pm
This frosting is definitely thick. You can see in the pictures that it held up nicely to piping. It’s not as creamy as a ganache.
Thank you for responding! 🙂 I see that some people use melted chocolate instead of cocoa powder. Doesn’t it really matter?
beantownbaker — February 5th, 2013 @ 10:13 am
For this recipe, I always use cocoa powder.
If I make these the day before do I have to refrigerate them(since the recipe calls for milk)or can I leave them on the counter covered?
beantownbaker — October 30th, 2013 @ 8:21 pm
You can leave them on the counter. The milk in the frosting stabilizes so it won’t go bad. I’d put them in a covered container though.
Hi. Is the butter you use salted or unsalted?
beantownbaker — December 26th, 2013 @ 11:01 am
I always use unsalted butter unless specified as salted butter.
This is absolutely THE BEST chocolate frosting recipe I have EVER tried. I used it to frost some homemade vanilla mint cupcakes and topped them with an Andes mint for my daughters sweet 16 party. I had complete strangers tell me I need to open up a bakery and sell nothing but those cupcakes! Thank you so much for posting this. It is truly amazing.
beantownbaker — January 2nd, 2014 @ 1:32 pm
SO glad you enjoy this recipe! Nothing beats a great chocolate frosting.
I can’t wait to try this! I LOVE the flavor of the hersey’s dark choc frosting recipe but its so thin that i can’t use it for cupcakes, only for a cake. I even tried refrigeration overnight to see if that would thicken it up and it didn’t. so i can not wait try to this one for my cupcakes!
beantownbaker — April 27th, 2014 @ 2:53 pm
I agree. The Hershey’s one is just too thin for cupcakes.
I made a variation on this recipe for my daughter’s birthday cake yesterday and it was fabulous!
I’m still trying to figure out how 6T butter is enough though–I ended up putting in two whole sticks of butter and adding in the milk after the first addition (I added it slowly) of powdered sugar/cocoa combo–it was so thick and dry that my mixer was making new, horrible noises and I was sure it was going to die! LOL