Stove Test: Cupcakes for Dudes

Pink is not permitted. Dainty paper cups are prohibited. And sprinkles are definitely not allowed.

The Butch Bakery Cookbook by David Arrick and Janice Kollar features only cupcakes fuelled by testosterone. Some of them are booze-soaked. Others are accessorized with meat. None would be welcome at a five-year-old girl’s birthday party.

“We’ve broken the cupcake guidelines with a roster of cupcakes that appeal to masculine taste buds, making their look streamlined and right to the point,” writes the author.

I decided to take the book for a spin and bake two of the recipes for a festive gathering near some cubicles at my mothership, canada.com.

It was plainly obvious that I HAD to bake one of several cupcakes topped with bacon, so my first choice was the Driller (a maple cupcake frosted with milk chocolate ganache and candied bacon bits, mine are shown above).

Another pig-related choice in the book is the Home Run (a peanut butter cupcake with banana buttercream and bacon bits).

I like the way the book starts with cupcake-specific tips, so if you really are a man dipping his toe into the frosting ocean for the first time, The Butch Bakery takes you from zero to sixty.

My second endeavour was the Beer Run (chocolate stout cupcake with vanilla stout buttercream topped with chocolate-covered pretzels).

There are loads of other alcohol-inspired recipes in the book, like Jack Daniel’s Rush (red velvet cupcake with Jack Daniel’s cream cheese frosting).

Other intriguing entries include: Really Hot Dog (chile-spiked), Tailgate (salted caramel), Mojito (rum and lime), Camp Out (S’mores flavoured with a blowtorched marshmallow on top) and Sweet Mama (Applejack-spiked apple pie inside a cinnamon cupcake). I could go on…

This is an awesome book to inspire some conversation-starting cupcakes. I’m happy to report that mine went over well with the co-workers, especially the National Post photo department.

After consuming my cupcakes, some experienced spontaneous and abundant spurts of chest hair growth. Others rushed to the parking lot to perform oil changes on their cars. Really, these cupcakes do enhance masculinity.

In spite of all this progress, however, you still can’t get away with calling a man “cupcake.”

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Tagged as: bacon, baking, cookbooks, cupcakes, men, stove test