Pancake Cupcakes with Maple-Bacon Frosting
So, bacon is all the rage right now. Bacon and chocolate, bacon and popcorn, bacon and… pretty much anything. Bacon, bacon, bacon. I’m actually not sure why it’s so trendy now; I mean, isn’t bacon something that most people (aside from vegetarians and vegans) have loved since they were a kid eating breakfast on Saturday morning? I, personally, am one of those lifelong bacon lovers. BLT’s, bacon cheeseburgers, bacon and eggs, bacon and pancakes, bacon in mac n’ cheese, bacon and… pretty much anything. Love. And so these cupcakes? Absolutely love. I thought, what naturally goes better with bacon than pancakes and syrup? Not much else, and so these babies were born.
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The cupcakes are made from a homemade pancake batter and baked up in a muffin tin. They are light and airy on the inside, just like a wonderfully fluffy pancake should be. The buttercream frosting is spiked with maple syrup and crumbled bacon. It’s important to note that unless you have a large, round decorating tip you are not going to be able to pipe the frosting onto these cupcakes. As you might imagine, the bacon will get stuck in the decorating tip. So just slather it on and call it rustic. And quaint. And then take a huge bite and savor all the salty sweetness in all its glory. If it’s 8am call it breakfast; if it’s 8pm call it dessert. You can’t go wrong either way!
Next time I think I’m going to make a few extra pieces of bacon, crumble them up, then drizzle some maple syrup over, toss together to coat, and then fold into the cupcake batter before filling the muffin cups. The more bacon, the merrier, right?!
What’s your favorite bacon “dish”?
Pancake Cupcakes with Maple-Bacon Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
For the Cupcakes:
- 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1½ cups (366 ml) whole milk
- 2 eggs
- 1 ounce (28.35 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled, (2 tablespoons)
For the Frosting:
- 8 ounces (226.8 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature, (1 cup )
- 2½ cups (300 g) powdered sugar
- 3 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 slices of bacon, cooked, cooled and crumbled
Instructions
- 1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a standard muffin pan with liners and then spray the liners with non-stick spray (important step!).
- 2. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl; set aside. In a separate medium bowl whisk together the milk and eggs, then stir in the melted and cooled butter. Add the milk mixture to the dry ingredients and whisk together until just moistened and combined. Like pancakes, lumps are okay! Divide the batter between the muffin cups and bake until puffed and firm to the touch, about 10 minutes. Let cool for about 5 minutes and then remove cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely.
- 3. To make the frosting, use the whisk attachment of a stand mixer to whip the butter on medium-high speed for about 5 minutes, scraping the bowl as needed. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the powdered sugar a little at a time, waiting until it's mostly incorporated before adding more. Once all of the powdered sugar has been added, scrape the sides of the bowl and increase the speed to medium-high and whip until fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the maple syrup and the vanilla and whip for another minute or so to incorporate. Add the bacon and mix to combine. Using an offset spatula, spread the frosting on the cupcakes. Top with additional crumbled bacon if desired.
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Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @thebrowneyedbaker on Instagram so I can see it!
i made these today. i put some frozen blueberries in the batter and sprinkled on some bacon that i baked in brown sugar rather than adding it directly to the frosting. my husband and kids LOVE them. thanks!!!! they were easy to make.
I made these yesterday and oh my geezers… They are UH-MAZE-ING! They’re like breakfast in a cupcake. I took them to work and got my coworkers to try them too… they’re all believers now and want the recipe! Thanks for sharing this!
I made these for my daughter to bring for the last day of school. The pan/cupcakes turned out great but the icing was way extremely sweet, maybe I’ll try less sugar next time. Hope the kids enjoy them
I’m in the midst of making these for an event at school tomorrow, the pancakes just came out and are perfect. But I wonder if they will keep there lovely light fluffy texture in the fridge over night? Maybe I should wait until the morning to frost them?
Hi Annissa, I usually never recommend refrigerating cupcakes because it tends to dry them out and makes them dense. You can frost them once cool, but then I would store them in an airtight container at room temperature to maintain their texture.
even with the bacon bits in it? I too, would love to know! :-)
I am making these for my hubby for father’s day & 40th bday! I can’t stop licking the icing bowl. These are OUTSTANDING and I know he will love his breakfast in bed, as soon as I get my tongue of the wisk!
Can this icing be stored, or frozen? I think I will keep this around for pancakes & cupcakes all the time!
Happy birthday to your hubby! You can store the frosting in the refrigerator for a few days; you’ll need to let it come to room temperature and whip it up a bit before you use it again.
Have you tried adding anything to the pan/cupcake batter? Such as bananas, walnuts or something you would add to normal pancakes?
Hi Bernice, I have not yet tried any adaptations to the batter, but would love to hear if you have!
These cupcakes are AMAZING. They were a huge hit after people got over the bacon on a cupcake. I used turkey bacon, so for anyone wondering how they are…..THEY ROCK!!
Wow, these sound yummy! I LUV bacon!! I am so glad I stumbled upon your blog. I will be cooking up a lot of your recipies!! :)
I just made these! I incorporated cream cheese into the frosting. It was awesome! Although I must admit I felt should have added more bacon in the cup cake and on top. The cupcake itself came out a little dry, perhaps I baked it too long? Making another batch tomorrow morning. This time I’ll add lots more bacon and pay closer attention to the time.
Thank you for this recipe. I was so excited to make it!
I LUVS CUPCAKES AND BACON
CUPCAKES+BACON = DELICIOUSNESS
amazing
i have to make em
so i made these this morning and they were very good but I think I made a huge mistake.
The recipe said to leave the cupcakes in for about 10 minutes but i left them in for 17 minutes because after 10 minutes, the cupcakes were still wet in the middle (i did the toothpick test). Should I have turned off the oven even though the cupcakes were not fully baked yet? The result was they became very dense and chewy when they cooled.
The frosting was good. I used just 1 stick of butter (didn’t want left over frosting) and it was more than enough to frost all 12 cupcakes. I just halved the amount of powdered sugar and added an extra tblsp of maple syrup. It was quite sweet so i splashed some milk in there to even it out. Once I put the bacon in, the sweetness and saltiness balanced out very well.
Overall, it tasted amazing but I know I definitely screwed up on baking the cupcakes.
This cupcake is definitely amazing and inspiring. Next, am going to try it with mini m&m’s inside the pancake batter and top with M&M’s. Our favourite cafe does M&M pancakes, will try that and see how it is. But the bacon is divine in these!
Can I substitute 2% milk for the whole milk?
Yep!
So backed up on email. Sorry for the late response on this.
I also don’t understand all the bacon stuff going on lately BUT I do love it. These look amazing. Never thought of making muffins with pancake batter. Cool idea.
This is such a great idea! I just started following your blog and love your ideas!! Can’t wait to try this next weekend in place of our traditional pancakes :-)
I made these for my husband and his buddies this weekend. They loved them. What’s not to like about bacon. I put more bacon in the frosting – doubled it. Oink Oink
Yay for making the boys happy! Glad your hubby and his friends enjoyed these! And more bacon is always better :)
Hi Michelle ~ I’m a new (big!) fan of your blog. I found it a few weeks ago when I was looking for a unique brownie recipe to make for my boyfriend. I knew your salted caramel brownies were the right ones for me when the post started by talking about a Pens game! I grew up in Pittsburgh and am in North Carolina now for grad school. My boyfriend’s still in the Burgh and the brownies were just the right thing to take with me on my trip back home. I made a double batch and gave them to friends here in NC, too, and everyone is absolutely in love with them. I don’t even have words for that caramel sauce.
I just made these cupcakes for a girlfriend’s birthday. She’s a breakfast food junkie ~ in fact when I showed up with the cupcakes she was in the middle of making pancakes for dinner! They are amazing and she loves them. I wasn’t sure if I would since I’m not crazy about syrup on my breakfast meats, but I do. I love them. The plain pancake cupcake is perfection with the super sweet icing and the salty bacon. Next time I think I will put more bacon in the icing. I topped them with another three crumbled slices, but I still wanted more. Not that I have ever seen a food that I thought was bacon-y enough.
Thanks for two great recipes so far. I can’t wait to try more of your goodies!!
Hi Kelly, first of all, welcome to the site! So happy to have you! And thrilled to “meet” another Pittsburgher! I’m so glad you (and others) loved the brownies and the pancakes. Safe travels back and forth to NC!
Ha! I have always wanted to try a bacon sweet treat. But it’s funny, we have bacon and maple syrup together all the time – just seems funny when you put it on a cupcake. But I am all about :D
Ok, I made these for a bake sale and they were a hit! Greasing the liners is definitely a step that CANNOT be skipped (I used PAM and they still stuck a little to the liner a bit). I cannot wait to make these again!
Oh yay, always happy to hear when something is a bake sale hit! Thank you for sharing!
Thanks ladies!
Bacon really does make everything better! What a treat these would be.
Has anyone tried this recipe with Turkey Bacon? I am not trying to cut calories, but it’s what I have in my fridge and don’t think I need two types of bacon in there.
I pretty much stick to buying ONLY turkey bacon and I have found that the results are pretty close when using it to substitute regular bacon. The flavor doesn’t quite pack the punch that real bacon does, but if it’s all you have I personally think it does the trick (maybe add a slice or two for extra flavor). The ONLY thing that I require real bacon for is my clam chowder recipe. No substitutions there!!
I agree with Tania, I think you would be just fine using turkey bacon for this. It’s of course not quite the same, but will still be delicious! :)
I think I need these right now! Bacon makes everything better! I think it’s the rage now because people are finally figuring out that they can add bacon to, not only savory dishes, but sweet ones as well. Thanks for sharing! I like the addition for the next batch. Great idea!
You had me at bacon! Yum!
Wow, wow, wow! Michelle, you never cease to amaze!!!
My son, Charlie, doesn’t eat a lot of sweets but he loves bacon. He is turning twelve on Tuesday and these are going to be perfect for his birthday celebration. I can’t wait to get baking… or should I say baconing! Thanks!
Happy Birthday to your son Jennifer! I hope he enjoys these cupcakes as his birthday treat!
My boyfriend and I host brinners for our friends all the time. We made the beer waffles with apples last time (and they were delicious), but I think these are definitely on the menu for the next one!
As a side question, have you ever heard of a cookie called a date-nut swirl? They are my boyfriend’s favorite, but I’ve never had them and haven’t had much luck finding a recipe for them!
Brinners sound like such a fun idea! I love it, and so happy the beer waffles were a hit! About the date-nut swirl cookie, I haven’t heard of them, but I love all date/nut baked goods, so I am going to see what I can find! Stay tuned.
Fabulous idea for a Cupcake…love it!
These are so much fun! Yum!