Banana Bacon Bundt Cake

Name: Banana Bacon Bundt Cake
Prep time: 35 min
Cook time: 95 min
Total time: 130 min
Yield: 12
Ingredients: 3 cups all-purpose flour; 1 tsp baking soda; 1/2 tsp salt; 1 cup unsalted butter (room temperature); 2 cups granulated sugar; 3 large eggs (room temperature); 2 tsp vanilla; 1 1/2 cups overripe bananas (mashed, approx 4 medium); 1 cup buttermilk (room temperature); 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar; 5 Tbsp pure maple syrup; 4 slices bacon; 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp light brown sugar (packed); 1 Tbsp pure maple syrup

January 20, 2016 by Olivia 52 Comments

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Your favourite breakfast flavours in one delicious Banana Bacon Bundt Cake! Banana cake, maple sugar glaze, and candied bacon.

You’re probably thinking to yourself, Banana bacon? Umm, gross. You wouldn’t be alone. That’s the reaction I got from a couple blogger friends when I mentioned my plan for this month’s #BundtBakers theme. June over at How to Philosophize with Cake picked a doozy this month — weird but good flavour combinations. I don’t usually have a hard time coming up with what to make for a particular #BundtBakers theme, but what on earth was I going to do here? I don’t particularly like weird but good combos. Or so I thought.

I tossed around a few ideas with friends — everything from lemon thyme to coffee orange, but none were particularly exciting to me. So, off I went to Google. The first link I clicked on led me to some interesting options. Chocolate and olive? Eww, no thank you. Banana bacon was on that list, and I found it intriguing. Ryan insisted it was the combo I should go with, so I did.

Can you believe this is the first time in my life that I’ve made bacon? True story. Unless, of course, you count the microwave kind, which you really shouldn’t. I couldn’t really give you a reason why. I mean, bacon is like the best thing out there (next to chocolate cake, of course). I guess I just never got around to making it. Naturally, this meant research needed to be done on the “best” way to make bacon.

I opted for doing it in the oven and on a wire rack (I also tried a batch in the oven without a wire rack, but that was a huge mistake). The wire rack not only kept the bacon from shrivelling up, it also allowed it to cook more evenly. My biggest mistake was getting crappy bacon. I went for grocery store-bought — you know, the kind where you can only see a sliver into the package and you think it’s going to be awesome, and then you open it up and it’s almost entirely fat? Yeah, that. Next time I would buy thick cut bacon from my local meat shop — because clearly I am a bacon connoisseur from my from my one time making it and all.

At any rate, the rack-cooked bacon turned out perfectly and my house smelled amazing for hours. Few things smell better than maple candied bacon, let me tell you.

Enough about the bacon, what does it TASTE like?! Well, it tastes pretty damn good. The banana-bread type cake goes really well with the sweetness of the maple glaze and the salty/sweet bacon pieces. I didn’t put any bacon IN the actual cake, but I would next time. I actually ended up sprinkling more bits of bacon on my piece after the fact so I could have more of that flavour.

If you’re looking for something unique and weird but GOOD, this recipe is for you. If you’re not into the whole banana bacon thing, then check out the other delicious options from my #BundtBaker friends after the recipe!

5 from 2 votes