Lemon Buttermilk Cupcakes

A little while ago, on a whim, I invited a dear friend and her two lovely girls for afternoon tea. Once I had done that, I then needed to rustle up something for said afternoon tea, preferably without leaving the house.

It turns out I had all the ingredients for the delicious-sounding lemon buttermilk cupcake. They were super easy, and really nice and sticky.


I paired with a really simple lemony cream cheese icing, but I think they might be just as delicious with a bit of lemon syrup poured on when they're still hot.

They must have been reasonably good, since the kids (even my two little ones) ate the whole cake, not just the icing!

Would I make them again? Yes, they're a perfect afternoon tea-style cake, and give the impression of being far more complicated than they really were.

Credit where credit's due: actually, of the top of my head, I'm not sure, but I'll dig it out and edit the post when I'm not multitasking by blogging and preventing a 8 month old child from falling off the couch.

Also, I've got about 4 more cupcake blogs to write (the cakes themselves are long gone), so I apologies if you feel like your getting blog spammed by me. On the other hand, it could take me just as long to get to those posts as it did to get to this one...


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Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes

After posting some 'taster' pics and descriptions on facebook, I've had some vastly different responses to this concept. There have been a few people that are sure I've missed the mark, but a surprising number that think this might be the greatest thing ever.


To start, I should point out that I don't like bacon. Not one little bit. I even think the flavour contaminates other things but there was something about this concept that intrigued me. I should also admit that I haven't eaten any of them. I just can't do it. I can't put the bacon in my mouth, as much as I want to. But that is also a pretty strong indicator of why I bake: not for me, but to share with other people. Out of all the cupcakes I've made for this blog, I've probably had no more than 2 from any batch (usually about 18 in a batch).

So this recipe is multi-staged. First, you have to cook some bacon, dice it, and cover it in chocolate. Then, you use the fat that rendered out when you were cooking the bacon, to replace the butter in the chocolate cake recipe (too much information? Pretend I didn't say it. But i have a pic if you want one. It's disturbing.). This should give the cake an overall impression of bacon, rather than a really clear bacon taste.

Chocolate covered bacon. Doesn't look that appetising.

Then a chocolate buttercream (using real melted chocolate, rather than cocoa) goes on top, and the chocolate-covered bacon bits get sprinkled over that. There are also chocolate-covered bacon bits in the cake mix. My mystery taster said the verdict was: "super frikking chocolatey, but when you hit a bacon bit, the saltiness cuts right through and works really nicely. I rate it 4 insulin shots out of 5."

mmmm. Meaty.

Most of the cakes were sent to M's school, to make up for the egg-free, dairy-free cupcakes they tasted for me last week (I'll get to that post eventually...). Some of the staff wouldn't even taste them, I guess they were a bit like me, or just couldn't cope with the bacon/chocolate combination. I like to think it's a similar style of food as salted caramel. You just need to pretend that there isn't meat in your cake. Others thought they were pretty good, but I think the sweetness was a surprise.

Conclusion? A nice novelty, but probably not something I'll do again (unless specifically asked!).

Credit where credit's due: the recipe is from Sprinklebakes.