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Tag Archives: baked goods

I make! Bacon egg cupcakes edition

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So…bacon and egg cupcakes.  They are a thing.

I saw these awhile ago and I’ve really wanted to try making them.  I didn’t though because it involves a muffin tin and I only have muffin tins that make a dozen muffins at a time.  I didn’t want to eat a dozen of these.  Sure, I didn’t have to fill the entire muffin tin, but you don’t really get a good feel for a recipe if you only make like…one cupcake…thing.

I’ve seen several iterations of these recipes and most of them say to either cook the bacon completely or at least halfway before using them to line the muffin tin.  If you’re making 12 of them, cooking bacon in a fry pan is really annoying.  It takes forever because you can’t cook more than a few pieces at a time.  And I needed 18 slices of bacon (12 whole slices to line each well of the tin and then two quarters of a slice on the bottom of each well).  Unless you have like a 24″ fry pan.  If you have a 24″ fry pan, how big is your burner?

What I ended up doing was to stick the bacon in the oven as it was preheating.  Just spread them out on some sheet pans and stick them in the oven is still cold.  When the oven is finished preheating (about 15min for my oven) the bacon slices are half cooked.  Then you can use them to line your muffin tin. And this helps cut down on the grease.  And if you wanted to cook a great deal of bacon all the way through, just leave them in the oven for longer.  About a total of 20-25 min, depending on how crisp you like your bacon.

Before you assemble, REMEMBER TO SPRAY YOUR MUFFIN TIN WITH COOKING SPRAY.  Or at least prep it in some way.  I didn’t because I had forgotten and didn’t remember until I had already started the assembly process.  You are dealing with eggs.  They love to stick to everything as they are cooking.  The residual bacon grease will not be enough to keep the eggs from sticking to your pan.  It actually wasn’t that bad, but it still took some soaking and scrubbing to get it off.  All of which could have been avoided if I had just sprayed the wells beforehand.  So remember to prep the pans.

After you have your pan entirely lined with bacon, you can plop in the eggs.  I did a whole egg in each well with some salt and pepper sprinkled on top.  I’ve seen people do some kind of scramble with chopped onions or bell peppers and herbs too.  I might try that next time.

I baked mine at 400degF for about 15min and the yolks had just turned solid.  Adjust your time accordingly if you like softer or firmer yolks, I guess.  The edges of the bacon were crisp and pretty good.  The rest of it stayed a bit softer than I like.  I think I might cook the bacon for a bit longer next time I try making this.  The bacon would unlikely ever be entirely crisp since it’s stuck in a well and has egg mashing up against it, but I think I could get it a little less floppy.  The crisp edges were good though.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I removed them from the pan via chopsticks.

Anyway, there you have it.  Bacon egg cupcakes.

I make! Persimmon nut bread edition

"I made you porridge! And it's happy to see you." --Mushu

“Look, you get porridge! And it’s happy to see ya!” –Mushu

Ok, I didn’t make porridge.  I really like rice porridge though.  But anyway, I made persimmon nut bread recently and then made French toast with some left over slices.  It’s the French toast and accompanying sausage links that are happy to see you.

So…persimmon trees are very spiteful.  You spend all year longing for persimmons and the tree ignores you.  Refuses to give you any persimmons.  And as you’re about to give up in despair of every getting to eat persimmons again, the tree decides to give you a few short weeks of persimmons.  That all ripen at the same time.  And like 500 of them or at least 123123 times the amount you can actually eat.  So then you collect boxes and boxes and BOXES  of persimmons and you try to give them away.  But people are wise to your ways and try to step clear of you when you’re out trying to foist boxes of persimmons on them.  Persimmon trees are spiteful.

And…that’s approximately what happened to us.  Well, I was on the receiving end of a box of persimmons.  And only one.  I was firm about that.  I would not accept multiple boxes of persimmons.

However, the problem with me receiving even one box of persimmons is that…I don’t really like eating persimmons.  They don’t have a lot of flavor and are basically just sweet.  Also, the hachiya persimmons have a gross texture.  Someone once described it as eating snot.  I do like dried persimmons where they become this dense donut of sweetness.  But I don’t really have any intention of drying a box of persimmons.  What do?

Bake stuff.

Persimmons function a lot like pumpkin in baking and they go well with the same kinds of spices.  The only thing is most of the time, I see recipes for hachiya persimmons.  Those are the long pointy type that you can’t eat until they’ve softened into mush, otherwise your mouth and throat go numb.  When you have recipes that call for hachiya persimmons or persimmon pulp, you can still use fuyu persimmons, which are the ones I would prefer to eat if I have to eat persimmons, but you have to wait until they’re overripe.  And I have a box of firm fuyu persimmons (the squat ones you can eat while before they’ve turned to mush).  Good thing I found this recipe for fuyu persimmon bundt cake.

After studying the recipe, I decided that it wasn’t so much cake-like as it was quick bread-like, so I reorganized the recipe so assembly was more like a quick bread.

Yield: 2 squat loaves or 6 mini loaves and a squat loaf

Time: 15 min prep + 45 min cook = 1 hr

Materials:

  • 3 cup firm fuyu persimmons, peeled and cubed (0.5″)
  • 0.5 cup butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • zest from one lemon
  • 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground cloves
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 0.5 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1 cup  walnuts, chopped
  • 0.75 cup  raisins

Procedure:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 deg F.
  2. Prep pans.
  3. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar.
  4. Add eggs, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla until incorporated.
  5. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and spices.
  6. Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients until just blended.
  7. Fold in persimmons, walnuts, and raisins.
  8. Spoon mixture into prepared pans.  Batter will be very thick.
  9. Bake until a rich brown, about 45 min for mini loaves and 55 min for normal loaf pans.
  10. Cool in pan for 15 min and remove to finish cooling on rack.

Notes:

  • If you have issues with the persimmons sinking to the bottom of the batter, save a couple of tablespoons of the dry mixture and toss it with the persimmons before folding them into the wet mixture.
  • I used a raisin medley, which I think turned out really well.  They seem to turn out better than those ubiquitous small speck raisins.
  • It smells absolutely delicious when you’re baking.
  • The mixture doesn’t rise much in the oven.  I generally fill my mini loaf pan all the way to the top and when I take it out of the oven, it’s crowned only slightly giving me a nice loaf-y look.
  • You may have to bake a little longer than I had to.  I happened to have my pizza stone in the oven while I was baking and it helps mitigate the swing in temperature.
  • If you have leftovers, slice into 1″ slices and then make French toast.  It makes wonderful French toast.  And this is coming from someone who doesn’t normally like French toast.
  • You’ll notice that I kept the volumetric measurements in the recipe.  That’s because I was lazy and didn’t take weight measurements.  I might edit this later for weight measurements.