Dark chocolate bacon cupcakes

As Valentine's day was approaching, I wondered what I could bake for my husband? Then I came across this recipe on the BBC website for dark chocolate bacon cupcakes.

Recently, I discovered that the phenomenon of sweet and savoury together has not really caught on here in the UK while in the states, I feel like we've always put sweet and savoury together (pancakes with bacon or sausages).

Bacon? Chocolate? Can they really work together? Well... Bacon? good! Dark chocolate? Good! Bacon + Dark chocolate = hopefully good!

I used these cute cupcake cases brought over by Nick and Grace who were visiting at the time.I think I need to practice my piping skills because it didn't turn out as pretty as I wanted it. However, I've discovered that when you incorporate chocolate into anything, no one complains about the presentation.

What did my husband think? Well because I know that he's not a fan of the sweet and savoury, I actually made him cupcakes without the bacon in it. However, I decided that I would make them for my office, and they loved it! There were many raised eyebrows as they realized it was bacon in a chocolate cupcake. Overall, they all loved it.

What do you do if someone is allergic to gluten? Well, I wasn't able to make a batch of gluten free cupcakes, but I just saved one of the bacon strips drizzled with chocolate and gave that to my boss who is allergic to gluten. He seemed very happy. Maybe next time, I will use a recipe for gluten free cupcakes and add the bacon to it.

Happy Valentine's Day!

The recipe is below. The measurements are in metric (by weight) but you can easily use a conversion site to convert it to US measurements if needed.

Ingredients

• 12 slices pancetta, grilled until crisp (in the states this is normal bacon)
• 100g/3½oz dark chocolate, melted
• 225g/8oz plain flour (all purpose flour)
• 50g/2oz cocoa powder
• 250g/9oz caster sugar (normal sugar)
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 2 free-range eggs
• 50ml/2fl oz strong coffee, cooled
• 225fl oz/8fl oz soured cream
• 120ml/4fl oz vegetable oil

For the buttercream icing

• 150g/5oz unsalted butter, softened
• 150g/5oz icing sugar, sifted (powdered sugar)
• 100g/3½oz dark chocolate, melted and cooled slightly
• sea salt, for sprinkling (optional - I decided not to add because bacon was salty enough)

Preparation method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line a muffin tin with paper cases.
   
2. Crumble two-thirds of the grilled pancetta onto a baking tray lined with baking parchment and cover with the melted chocolate. Allow to set before chopping into bacon chocolate chips.
   
3. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl and mix well.
   
4. In another bowl beat the eggs, coffee, soured cream and vegetable oil until well combined, and stir this into the dry ingredients. Stir in the bacon chocolate chips.
   
5. Spoon the mixture into about 20 muffin cases, bake for 20-25 minutes.
   
6. For the buttercream icing, whisk together the butter and icing sugar. Fold in the melted chocolate.
   
7. Remove the cupcakes from the oven and allow to cool before piping the icing onto the cupcakes. Top with the remaining bacon pieces and a sprinkling of sea salt.