Yesterday would've been Elvis Presley's 76th birthday and I decided what better time for me to conquer my fear of baking with bacon and make The Elvis.
The Elvis cupcake is based on a sandwich which was a favourite of his, the peanut butter, banana and bacon.
It's a pretty simple cupcake to make; a moist banana cupcake base, covered in lots of crunchy peanut butter frosting, with a chunk of streaky bacon to decorate. When I went to Ginger Pig to buy a couple of rashers of streaky they were suspicious of me till I told them it was to decorate cupcakes.
The base recipe if from the Love Bakery cookbook, and while it's very nice it makes rather massive cupcakes. Mine overflowed slightly leading to a bit of an uneven topping to frost onto. The frosting is some vanilla frosting with peanut butter added to taste - quite a lot of peanut butter. It was rather thick and the first attempt at frosting was a disaster, so I had to thin it out slightly with some milk. It still wouldn't go through my favourite nozzle, the 1M, so I had to use the biggest one I have which I'm not so keen on and it didn't make a pretty topping, so in the end, after contemplating, What Would Elvis Do?, we decided just to slap it on, or if you prefer, rustically apply the frosting to the cupcake Elvis style! Not the prettiest cupcakes, but how did they taste?
I let Manny taste the first one, incase it was as disgusting as my previous taste of bacon cupcakes at Batch in New York, and I have to agree with his verdict, bacon goes much better with peanut butter than it does with chocolate. I actually managed to swallow, something I didn't with the bacon/chocolate combo. While it tasted okay I don't really think it added much to the cupcake and ate the rest without bacon, Manny however scoffed two, with extra bacon. Oink.
If you want to make some other Elvis inspired recipes check out Fit for a King, The Elvis Presley Cookbook.
