Bacon and Egg Stuffed Pancake Muffins

I came up with this idea sometime last summer and dubbed myself a genius.  Sometimes you have to pat your own back, you know? 

Okay, okay...  I probably wasn't the first person in the world to think of this... or DO it, either.  But don't tell my family, please.  They still think I'm a genius and I need them to hold on to that for awhile.  It makes me hopeful that they'll be more forgiving the next time I burn something and make them eat it anyway.  It happens.

Turns out, these delicious muffins are the perfect travel food.  They are hearty, filling, tasty, and supply a good amount of protein to sustain you for the morning.  I've made them to take with us on road trips when we need to get up and get out. 

Here's how you do it.

Start with your favorite pancake batter (mix or from scratch is fine).  Here's my favorite.

About two cups of batter should do it.  This is half of my recipe.

Set that to the side while you work on the bacon and eggs. 

I happened to have some leftover bacon from the breakfast of a previous day that week.  I like to make lots of bacon when I make bacon.  That way I can use the leftovers for BLTs, baked potatoes, soups, muffins, whatever.  Bacon doesn't ever go bad in my fridge.  It can't... because we will ALWAYS eat it.

Also, I had a bunch of hard boiled, technicolor eggs in my fridge as a result of the Easter weekend.  I can only stand so many deviled eggs and egg salad sandwiches, so I put them to good use. 

You can cook these items fresh, of course.  It wouldn't take too much time, but this is much more convenient.  So, if you can plan ahead, keep a few pieces of extra bacon in the fridge ("extra bacon"... add that to your oxymoron list) and maybe a couple hard boiled eggs.  You could always scramble them fresh, if you needed to. 

So, anyway, give the bacon a good chop.

And dice up your eggs.  Here's my shortcut.  Use the handy dandy egg slicer to slice once,

then rotate 90 degrees

 and slice again.

Or, like I said before, if you don't have any hard boiled eggs handy, or don't want to go to the trouble of boiling them just for this recipe, then don't.  Scrambled eggs work just as well.  In fact, that's how I usually make this, I just happened to have these handy because of Easter. 

Get out your really old and tarnished, burnt up muffin pan and either spray with nonstick spray or line with muffin cups.  Up to you.

Pour in a thin layer of pancake batter.  Just enough to coat the bottom of the cups.

Layer on some bacon

then some egg

and top it off with some more batter.  Fill the cups to about 3/4 of the way full.

Pop these into an oven preheated to 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Normally, this would be the end of the process for me.  But this time I had an epiphany while they were in the oven.  I thought, "....icing...."  I hadn't intended for this to happen.  It just, kinda, did.  I wasn't at all prepared.  But I knew I had to make it happen, so I rummaged through my fridge and I came up with this:

Maple Cream Cheese Icing
I found about two ounces of cream cheese and threw it into the mixer bowl (dang it!  I forgot to buy more cream cheese when I went shopping last night!)

Ideally, this would be room temperature, softened cream cheese, but I was working on the fly.  I didn't have time for all that.  I was being moved by the Holy Spirit anyway, and you don't mess with that flow.  So my cream cheese was cold.  But yours shouldn't be, okay?  Okay.

Add a little powdered sugar.

Not too much, just enough to sweeten the cream cheese ever so subtly.  We aren't making cupcake icing, remember.
This is where I messed up a little.  Due to the overwhelming Holy Spirit inside of me I forgot to beat the cream cheese and the sugar BEFORE adding the next ingredient.  Had I done that, the resulting icing may have been a little smoother.  Coupled with the fact my cream cheese was cold instead of room temperature, as it should have been, my icing was a bit lumpy.  BUT!  Despite its slightly unappetizing appearance, it tasted divine!!  You're gonna have to trust me on this. 

 Now add a splash of maple extract.

And pretend that my cream cheese and sugar are beaten to a nice fluff.

When you pull the muffins out of the oven, immediately spread/drizzle on the icing.

Again, lumps are just lumps.  The icing was so delicious!  It was just the perfect compliment of sweetness and maple flavor.  I will always make this icing whenever I make these muffins, from now on.  Its just too good.

You gotta try this one, guys.  You will not regret it!

Bacon and Egg Stuffed Pancake Muffins
makes 9 muffins
2 c. pancake batter
3-4 strips of cooked, chopped bacon
2 eggs, scrambled or hard boiled and diced

Spray a muffin tin or line it with cupcake liners.  Layer ingredients starting with a thin layer of batter, followed by bacon and eggs, then more batter.  Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

For the Icing
measurements are approximate
2 oz.  softened cream cheese 
1/3 c. powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. maple extract.

Beat cream cheese and powdered sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add maple extract and continue to beat until well combined.  Spread icing on warm muffins.

PS  Can I tell you how many times I misspelled "cream cheese" throughout this post?  cream sheese.  cream xheese. Its way too early.