This is my husband and I’s first year of growing a garden. Alas, the only vegetables that seemed to grow were zucchinis. And LOTS of zucchinis. My husband made a stellar zucchini bread with our bounty. For a quick breakfast or snack, I adapted the recipe for this contest and created these muffins. If you wanted to be healthier, you could skip the candied bacon. But now why would you be so silly to do that? This recipe can easily be halved.

Yield: 24 muffins

Candied Bacon Topping Ingredients:

• 6 slices Indiana Kitchen Bacon (I used Hardwood Smoked)
• 2 Tbsp. Eisele’s Honey
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ¼ tsp. cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp. flour

Muffin Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 2 ½ tsp. ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
• 3 eggs
• ½ cup Healthy Hoosier Sunflower Oil
• 1 ½ cups Traders Point Creamery Yogurt
• 1 cup white sugar
• ¾ cups Eisele’s Honey
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 cups shredded zucchini, excess moisture squeezed out
• ½ cup chopped, roasted walnuts

Directions:

To make candied bacon streusel, preheat oven to 375 °F. Lay a layer of aluminum foil on a cookie sheet and top with a cooling rack. Liberally brush bacon with honey. Bake for 15-20 minutes until bacon is crispy but not burnt. Lay on wooden cutting board to cool before chopping. Chop finely.

Combine bacon with brown sugar, cinnamon and flour. Combine well. Set aside until ready to assemble muffins.

To make muffins, lightly grease 24 muffin cups. Increase oven temperature to 400 °F. In a bowl, sift together the all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg. In a separate bowl, beat together eggs, sunflower oil, yogurt, sugar, honey and vanilla. Mix the flour mixture into the egg mixture. Fold in the zucchini and walnuts. Scoop into the prepared muffin cups. Top each muffin with about 1 Tbsp. of bacon streusel.

Bake 18-20 minutes in the preheated oven, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffin comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Submitted by: Pam Nash Dobbin
Indiana Grown Culinary Creations Contest