And another culinary crime: bacon-laced chocolate cupcakes

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The crowning touch on X's birthday dinner were chocolate cupcakes... of which a dozen had been laced with bacon. It was worth the try!

Any basic chocolate cake recipe can be used for this debasement of culinary rules, even a commercial mix. My recipe came from my ever-faithful Encyclopédie de la cuisine de Jehane Benoît (Montréal, ÉRPI, 1991), p. 548 and was called "Chocolate cake; new method". By the way, Jehane Benoît, who would not have published such culinary heresies, would, it seems, have approved of our unorthodox ways. The opening of her tome states [my translation]: "Original and creative cooking becomes easy once one has grasped all the basic principles on which culinary art rests. From there, it is possible to improvise using one's imagination, using what I call 'finesse and flair in cooking'. [...] One's artistic sensibility, joined with this knowledge, allows one to observe, plan, and give free rein to one's imagination. Further, one will always get new ideas to try out." (Ibid, pp. IX-X)

Now that I've found a truly Jesuitic justification for our baconification enterprise, here is the recipe. For 24 cupcakes or two 9-inch (23 cm) cakes:

• 500 ml (2 cups) flour (the recipe calls for pastry/cake flour, but I used all-purpose flour because that was what was in my kitchen and it worked equally well.)
• 425 ml (1¾ cup) sugar
  
• 175 ml (¾ cup) cocoa
• 6 ml (1¼ tsp) baking soda
  
• 3 ml (¾ tsp) baking powder (I put a tad more to compensate for my additions)
• 5 ml (1 tsp) salt (I put a tad less)
• 175 ml (¾ cup) vegetable shortening
• 300 ml (1¼ cup) milk
• 3 eggs
  
• 5 ml (1 tsp) vanilla extract

And I added:

• 75 ml (¼ cup) chopped bittersweet chocolate (one could use chocolate chips, I suppose)
  
• Well-cooked (crisp) bacon, crushed
  

Dry ingredients before mixing; the reflection on the inside of the bowl were irresistible to the photographer...

Preheat oven to 180° C (350° F). Prepare baking pans. Sift together (or simply mix well) dry ingredients (the first 6 on the list) in a large mixing bowl. Work the vegetable shortening in the mix. Add liquid ingredients and eggs. Mix (medium speed) until ready:

Add chocolate pieces (or chips) and mix well. As I was only adding bacon to half the recipe, I first filled the first twelve muffin pans (using an ice-cream scoop works wonders) before adding bacon to the other half of the recipe.

Cook 15 minutes for cupcakes or 35 minutes for the large (9") cakes. Test readiness with a toothpick before taking out of the oven. Let cool 10 minutes and take out of molds. Let cool completely before icing.

To make icing, soften 125 ml (½ cup) butter in a bowl and add approximately 750 ml (3 cups) or more icing sugar. Mix well using a hand (or stand) mixer. Add one egg white and/or ½ cream cheese brick and beat until soft. Flavour with vanilla or any other (I once tried orange rind and Grand Marnier; it was divine). This mix can also be coloured.

X defines a cupcake as an "icing delivery system". Don't be cheap! In order to know the bacon cupcakes from their less lethal brethren, I decorated them with a bit of the meat on the icing. The "ordinary" cupcakes had colour sprinkles.

These may not be healthy, but the cupcakes provide healing to the soul at the end of the semester... as marking gets more and more intense and the days become ever shorter in these here parts.