Bacon+Maple syrup+Cake = Heaven

Here in Portland we have a doughnut place called Voodoo Doughnuts. They are famous for their bizzare combinations such as one covered in fruit loops, or a chocolate glazed with Oreo pieces and peanut butter sauce. There are 3 in particular that make them famous however. Their Voodoo doll, the Cock and Balls doughnut, and their Bacon maple bar. They have even been featured on man vs food. The bacon maple bar was the inspiration for my bacon maple cake.

I had actually been talking to my co-workers about wanting to make this, and they more or less forced me into it. They decided they were going to have an all bacon potluck, so everything had to contain bacon. I was told to bring the cake, but the problem was..the potluck was the next day, how in the world can I bake a cake and let it cool in time for work tomorrow. Luckily Matt works from home sometimes, so I had him make the cake. I did cheat here, we used a yellow cake mix, mainly because we already had it in the pantry. When I got home I just had to do the rest of the work.

There isn't so much a recipe here so much as a line of concepts and steps taken. I do plan on working on this to develop an actual scratch recipe. I started by taking a mixing bowl, placed all of the bacon in the bowl, poured in about 1/4 cup maple syrup and 2 tbs brown sugar. I mixed this fully then layed out the bacon on a foil lined cookie sheet, covered it with another layer of foil, and placed another baking sheet on top of that in order to keep the bacon from curling up. In the meantime, I took some walnuts, mixed them with a little maple syrup, 1 tsp coarse salt, and a couple tablespoons of melted butter and spread this out on the top cookie sheet and baked the entire thing at 375 for roughly 30 minutes or until the bacon was fully cooked. If the walnuts start to burn, pull them out of the oven and continue to cook the bacon. Lay out the strips of bacon on a cooling rack and let cool to room temperature. Take some of the pieces of bacon and chop it up into bacon bits, also chop up the walnuts and mix the two together.

Next I did a basic buttercream frosting and added some maple flavoring and about 1/4 cup maple syrup for some additional color and flavor.

To make the cake, trim the tops of the cake. On the top of the first cake, spread about 1/4 of the frosting starting in the middle and moving out towards the edge. Then sprinkle on some bacon bits made from the candied bacon. Place the other cake, top down on the first one. Create a crumb layer by thinly frosting the cake. If you refrigerate the cake at this point then the final frosting is easier. Finish frosting the cake. Take the candied walnut and bacon bit mixture and press into the side of the cake. Then lay out the remaining strips of bacon on the top of the cake.

This is only how I decorated the cake so it is just a recommendation.