How to Make Bacon, Date, and Goat Cheese Cupcakes
Are you familiar with the appetizer “Devils on Horseback”? While there are many variations, the basic idea includes dates wrapped in bacon then stuffed with some sort of cheese and/or nut. I wanted to take this time-tested recipe and use it in a new way… and what more fitting way than to reimagine this classic as a dessert? So today we have Bacon, Date, and Goat Cheese Cupcakes:
Bacon, Date, and Goat Cheese Cupcakes
Ingredients
Cupcakes
- 1 box chocolate cake mix
- Eggs, oil, water called for on back of mix
- 24 dates, pitted
- 2 oz goat cheese
Frosting (adapted from Vermont Creamery)
- 4 oz goat cheese
- 4 oz butter, softened
- 5c powdered sugar
- 2T milk
- 3oz cooked and crumbled bacon (or if you, like me, decided to be lazy, a bottle of bacon bits)
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line cupcake tin with 24 cupcake liners.
- Slice each date down one side, so they open up… kind of like a clam shell.
- Stuff each date with a bit of goat cheese, and give each a little squeeze to kind of close it up and keep the cheese in there.
- Make cake batter as directed and distribute evenly into cupcake liners.
- Press a goat cheese filled date into each cupcake, and make sure each are covered with batter.
- Bake as directed and let cool. Meanwhile…
- Cream together the butter and goat cheese until combined.
- Add powdered sugar and milk and whip on high until fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes, and sprinkle each with a bit o’ bacon.
It’s a bacony cupcake with a surprise inside! Fun, easy, and definitely a way to mix things up when it comes to sweet and savory. Next time you need to bring an appetizer to an affair, bring these and see what happens.
