OK, I understand the whole salted caramels thing. I lightly salt watermelon to bring out the sweetness. I like a slice of sharp cheddar with apple pie. While I’m not a fan of Kettle Corn, I get the whole sweet-with-salty thing. But Tee & Cakes Bakery in Boulder, Colorado, has taken it to an extreme: bacon cupcakes.
Yep, bacon cupcakes — a light yellow cake topped with a bunch of chocolate and bacon. I’ll eat anything once, but this made me stop and consider before taking a bite. The texture and the taste were odd, but not unpleasant: soft cake, smooth sweet chocolate and crunchy smoked bacon.
Owners Kim Boos and Brian Wood started experimenting with the bacon cupcake after tasting a chocolate bar with bacon in it. (Mo’s Bacon Bar by Vosges Chocolate combines applewood-smoked bacon with milk chocolate).
It’s not for the faint of heart, Boos told a local television station. But there seem to be enough people who like the combination to make the cupcake one of Tee and Cakes best weekend sellers.
Maple syrup is mixed into the batter, making the cupcake a little more like a breakfast food than a dessert that fell onto a plate of breakfast leftovers. The maple cake is frosted with a bittersweet chocolate frosting and topped with crumbled crisp bacon.
The shop makes the bacon cupcakes only on Saturdays, but they can be custom ordered any day of the week. Each bacon cake sells for $2.65.
Tee & Cakes is located on 14th Street, just off Boulder’s popular Pearl Street pedestrian mall. The shop does not have a web site, but can be contacted at (720) 406-7548.