Yeah, it turns out I did let things slack off here.  My mistake.

I really ran into an issue of frustration, because I ended up not getting the help I needed for being able to do the competition, so I ended up not doing it.  Alas.

That said, for those curious as to how I made it work, I basically took a standard yellow cake recipe, and modified it as follows:

For the sugar, I replaced 50% of the white sugar usually used in such a recipe with brown sugar, and 50% with blackstrap molasses.  Then, where the recipe usually calls for butter, I completely replaced it with the same amount, by weight, of lard.

This results in a cake with the right texture that tastes a bit, but not completely, like barbecue sauce.  From there, it’s pretty simple to top with bacon and the frosting of your choice.

I will take ice cream making next – some exciting developments on that front.

So, as promised, bacon cake.

I should start off by discussing the origins.  A couple years ago, while at Otakon with some friends, I made a Kahlua cake for my friends.  They all enjoyed it, and we discussed just what kind of outrageous cakes I could make.  It was universally agreed that the most ludicrous thing I could make was bacon cake – how could I possibly make that taste good?

The thing is, when I was on my way home, I answered that question in my head.  Thereafter, it became a bit of a joke amongst my friends – oh, yeah, bacon cake, when would I ever be crazy enough to make that?  Even if the theories I had were sound, who would even eat it?

Fast forward to earlier in 2012, and the a brewery announced that they’d be doing a series of cooking competitions.  I had heard about their 2011 competition, but my local date was right around when I was moving to a new house, so I was too busy to compete.  When they announced that they were coming around again, I prepared to come up with a really great pie recipe (the focus of the last local challenge), when it was announced that they’d be doing cake this year instead.

Me?  In a cake competition?  Oh, yes.

Anyhow, I teamed with a friend who did the pie competition last year, and we started tossing forth ideas.  There was one tragically funny incident with mint cake (I’ll go into that another time), but for the most part, we felt like we were hitting against walls.  Then my friend said something that changed everything.

“It’s a shame we can’t do a meat cake of some sort.  Last year, the meat-based pies were the ones that did the best in the competition, and we’d have even less competition in that regard this year.”

I just kind of sat there, slack-jawed.  I remembered the bacon cake.  I told him about the bacon cake.  And yes, the lack of sanity of such a thing was noted.  But we also sat and noted… it could work.  It’d be the least healthy cake in existence, which is saying a whole lot.  But the culinary theories behind it made sense.

So, I put together the first draft of this bacon cake.  I kept it simple; none of the bells and whistles that would be involved in a competition cake.  Besides not wanting to put that much effort in at once, I had to know if the theory was sound.

And somehow, it was.  It has the texture of a slightly dense but very soft cake, sweet yet blended with the unmistakable flavor of bacon.  Both sweet and savory come out in this cake without clashing or becoming muddled.

Since this is for a competition, I’m holding off on giving out the recipe until after it’s done.  But still, for good or ill, bacon cake exists.  Heaven help us all.