Maple Bacon Muffins

The muffins:

• 1 cups flour

• 3 tbsp dark brown sugar

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 1/2 cup whole milk

• 1/2 stick butter, melted

• 1/3 cup maple syrup

• 2 tbsp Greek yogurt

• 1 large egg

• 1 tsp. vanilla

• 2 strips bacon, cooked and chopped

The glaze:

• 4 tbsp butter, melted

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar

• 4 tbsp maple syrup

The bacon:

• 4 strips bacon

• 2 tbsp dark brown sugar

Preheat oven to 400. For the muffins, combine all dry ingredients in one bowl. In another bowl, mix milk, butter, syrup, yogurt, egg, and vanilla together. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients slowly, mixing along the way. Once mostly incorporated, add bacon in until all ingredients are just combined. Distribute equally in muffin tin and cook for 15-18 minutes. While the muffins cook, combine glaze ingredients together.

Cover bacon in brown sugar and bake at 400 for about 15-17 minutes. Once cooled, break into pieces. Drizzle muffins with maple glaze and then sprinkle top with candied bacon.

My husband and I are not particularly sweets people. Every once in a while, we’ll go on a candy bender. Maybe the reason is that we can’t be trusted. A pack of Oreos has never seen sunrise in our apartment. He made me a devil’s food pie for my birthday this past year, and I nearly went into a sugar coma. It’s best if we… just don’t partake. But every once in a while, we break the rules, and we create something so ungodly and sinful that we have to share. Cut to: these muffins.

The bacon? Benton’s. The maple syrup? Vermont-ian (What are people from Vermont called?). In my opinion, this is the taste of breakfast. A beautiful mix of salty and sweet, I like to think of these as little bread bites more than a sugary muffin. The sugar content in the muffin itself is actually a bit light. Supplemented by the bacon inside, what you end up with is something more akin to a savory treat that’s kind of sweet. Mind you, that all goes out the window when you douse it in that glaze, but we’re not going to talk about that. These muffins are reserved for a cup of coffee and talking a little shit with friends. You gotta have your vices.