Savory Cupcakes

Super fun cupcakes via Food and Wine...

First we have a Maple Bacon Cupcake from Kumquat Cupcakery (Brooklyn). It is made with maple cinnamon cake topped with vanilla frosting and a thick cut of bacon from Vermont's Tamarack Hollow Farms.

At the Meatloaf Bakery (Chicago), Cynthia Kallile combines two unlikely comfort foods: meatloaf and the cupcake. For her cupcake-shaped Chili Chili Bang Bang, she tops a chili-inspired mini-meatloaf (prepared with ground beef and beans) with cheddar cheese–corn bread.

Shelley Cassar of Bliss Cupcake Café in Fayetteville, Arkansas, offers 30 different cupcake flavors—her sole savory one is the Tomato Basil Parmesan, made with tomatoes from the local farmers' market and topped with fresh-grated Parmesan cheese.

Los Angeles caterer Matthew Poley of Heirloom-LA fills his signature "Lasagnettes" (lasagna cupcakes) with fresh pasta and main-course-worthy combinations like slow-braised short rib with cippolini onions and Robiola cheese.

At the Phoenix restaurant Tuck Shop, John Cavanagh puts a witty spin on the ubiquitous red velvet cupcake: his version includes a beet cake topped with goat cheese-horseradish whipped cream and studded with pink peppercorns.

                              

At More in Chicago, Patty Rothman's fanciful cupcakes range from sweet to savory, humble (the BLT Cupcake, with bacon, tomato and an onion-garlic cream cheese frosting) to luxurious (including two versions of the Bacon White Truffle, one garnished with fresh-shaved white truffle; the other with truffle salt-tossed popcorn.

Chih-Chung Fang once worked the pastry station at Berkeley's illustrious Chez Panisse; now his inventive cupcakes for Republic of Cake in Orinda, California, include the Veggie Curry, a curried buttermilk cake filled with peas, carrots and roast potatoes and topped with cucumber yogurt.

Mona Wilson of It's a Cupcake in Philadelphia doesn't shy away from using seafood in her savory cupcakes—her ingredients range from shrimp and tuna to oysters and lobster. For The Lox, she tops a scallion cake with smoked salmon chive cream cheese.

At Roman Blas's Palm Springs shop, Over the Rainbow Cupcakes, the appropriately-named Wild Side menu has fantastical offerings like the Chocolate Covered Potato Chip, rimmed with crushed potato chips.

The Savory Sweet Corn is a green chile, cheddar cheese and corn cake at  new Sacramento shop, Esther's Cupcakes. It is a savory, slightly spicy riff on the traditional corn muffin.

Brooklyn bakers Matt and Allison of Robicelli's Cupcakes come up with inspired concoctions weekly, like the Chicken 'n' Waffles, a vanilla "waffle" cupcake topped with buttermilk fried chicken.