Sweet and salty Maple Bacon Blondies are essential for all this year’s fall festivities. Perfect for an autumn brunch, holiday potluck, and every event in between. Once you taste this recipe, it’s sure to become a seasonal baking staple.
Sweet and salty desserts are my jam. Try our holiday chex mix for the ultimate snack. Or give our candied cinnamon pecans a try. Perfect for snacking or adding to salads!
Table of Contents
Why Blondies Are The Best
Blondies are always a crowd pleaser. Add a little bacon and maple to the mix and you have an instant fall classic.
- The best blondie recipe for fall, these are packed with autumnal maple flavor to get you in the mood for cooler weather.
- In only 35 minutes, you can have a unique and delicious dessert for any party or potluck.
- The perfect blend of sweet and salty makes this recipe complex and crave-able.
Ingredient Notes
For the Blondies:
- Light Brown Sugar – Don’t forget to pack the brown sugar when you measure it to ensure the recipe is consistent and has the right amount of sweetness.
- Unsalted Butter – Melt and cool the butter to room temperature before starting this recipe. This way, you’ll get flawless chewy blondies every time.
- Eggs – Let your eggs come to room temperature to ensure the batter mixes together seamlessly.
- Salt – Use kosher salt for this recipe since it’s not as salty as regular table salt. With the addition of bacon to the recipe, you don’t want a sodium overload.
- Maple Flavoring – It’s worth it to add Maple Flavoring to your fall baking arsenal. But you can also use pure maple syrup in its place.
For the Frosting:
- Unsalted Butter – Use softened, room-temperature butter so you can whip it into the perfect light and fluffy consistency.
- Powdered Sugar – Add your powdered sugar in additions to avoid covering your kitchen in a cloud of sugar.
- Maple Flavoring – If you don’t have any maple flavoring on hand, you can use pure maple syrup instead.
- Milk – Any milk will do, but I like to use skim milk for this recipe since you get plenty of fat from the butter.
Easy Instructions
Combine brown sugar and melted butter. Mix these ingredients in a large bowl until the sugar has almost completely dissolved.
Incorporate eggs and vanilla. Add the vanilla to the bowl and fully incorporate the eggs into the mixture one at a time.
Stir in the rest of the blondie ingredients. Mix in the salt, flour, and maple flavoring. Stir until just combined, making sure to scrape the bowl during the process.
Bake and then cool blondies. Spread the batter into a parchment-lined 8” square baking dish, and bake at 350°F for 32-35 minutes. Then, allow the blondies to cool completely in the pan.
PRO-TIP: If you insert a toothpick into the center of the blondies, and it comes out clean, without any gooey batter attached, it’s baked!
Whip together frosting ingredients. With a stand or hand mixer, beat the butter until light and fluffy. Beat in the powdered sugar in additions. Then whip in the maple flavoring and milk.
Frost the cooled blondies and top with bacon. Spread the buttercream across the blondies. If you’re serving these bars immediately, top them with crumbled bacon and cut them into individual pieces.
Tips and Tricks
- Store any leftover blondies in an airtight container in the fridge. They’ll stay fresh for about 3 days.
- Add crumbled bacon to the top of the blondies before serving since refrigerated bacon will be soft instead of crunchy.
- Make sure the blondies are completely cooled before frosting. Otherwise, your buttercream will melt.
Serving Suggestions
With cooler weather right around the corner, these Maple Bacon Blondies beg to be served alongside a steaming hot beverage. So whether you sip one of these recipes alongside your blondies or go for the dunk, you’ll be blown away by these pairings.
Recipe FAQs
Maple extract is a super concentrated maple flavoring perfect for baking and other recipes. However, you could use maple syrup if you can’t get your hands on the extract. Just make sure you’re using pure maple syrup and not the kind made of corn syrup.
You can make this recipe up to 2 days ahead of time, storing it in an airtight container in the fridge. I like to keep the bacon crumbles separate from the frosted blondies. Then, right before serving, pop them in the microwave for a few seconds until they’re crispy, sprinkle on top of the bars, and serve.
Yes, this buttercream can be made up to a month ahead if you keep it in the fridge and up to three months in advance if you store it in the freezer. Let the icing thaw (if necessary) and re-whip it before frosting the blondies.
More Easy Dessert Recipes
Maple Bacon Blondies
Ingredients
For the Blondies:
- 1 ½ cup light brown sugar packed
- ¾ cup unsalted butter melted
- 2 large eggs
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon maple flavoring
For the Frosting:
- ½ cup unsalted butter softened
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon maple flavoring
- 2 Tablespoons milk I use skim
- ¼ lb bacon cooked and crumbled
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Line an 8-inch square baking dish with parchment paper. Set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, blend the brown sugar with melted butter. Add in eggs and vanilla, stir until combined. Add salt, flour, and maple flavoring, mixing until well blended. Pour into prepared baking dish.
- Bake for 32-35 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.
- For the frosting, beat butter with powdered sugar, maple flavoring and milk until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Spread over COOLED blondies. Sprinkle with cooked bacon.
Notes
- Store any leftover blondies in an airtight container in the fridge. They’ll stay fresh for about 3 days.
- Add crumbled bacon to the top of the blondies before serving since refrigerated bacon will be soft instead of crunchy.
- Make sure the blondies are completely cooled before frosting. Otherwise, your buttercream will melt.
Can’t wait to try this recipe they look great!
These are a wickedly good combination! Yesterday I went to dinner with my friends, and we were all on your phones while we waited for our check 🙂
Haha, that’s what I’m talking about 🙂
Bacon makes everything better, no doubt about that! And this is one recipe to put on my “must try” list. Thanks for sharing!
These brownies are beyond amazing!!!
Mmmm, awesome blondies!!
And I JUST noticed your note about “shugary” being correct…lol! It made me giggle.
These look so amazing. What a great combination of flavors. I bet they were spectacular.
I bought my first computer when my son was four (1989) because I knew he would need to know all about them y the time he started school and I never regretted it. In second grade, he taught his teacher how to do things on the computer as ell as the rest of the class.
All teenagers have been the bane of existence for their parents, I think. But, somehow, we all survive and have kids of our own.
I love all of this technology and can’t understand how people my age (66) don’t all embrace it.
And, I can’t wait to try your recipe.
It just makes me laugh when people rant about the internet and how much time people are on technology. If it had been here 20 or 30 years ago, it would still be the same as today. People are going to use what is available to them. We do not have any dictionaries or encyclopedias in our house because google is great! Our kids do so much of their homework online now too. But I’m still not convinced on the bacon on my sweets…I still have to have it with cheese and ranch! LOL! They do look pretty good though!!! Maybe one day you will convince me go over to the bacon/sweet dark side!
Thanks a ton for the shout out–you know I love my salty and sweet and these look awesome! And I hear you about the teen thing. I don’t have any yet (getting closer–eek!) but I did hear a (frankly old) lady complaining about the new generation work ethic the other day in the most sweeping, obscene manner. I really wanted to say something but could tell it wasn’t worth my breath. And yeah I was always plugged into my headphones too. Still might be if I didn’t have to listen for the kids!
UGH. YES, the “sweeping” manners digs deep in me! I usually don’t say anything either, I just come home and rant on the blog, LOL!!
Omg, these look insane. As in, I need to make them right now.
These blondies look to die for!
these look as the autumn days, the recipe is great and it’s a perfect dessert, I LOVE THEM
AMEN sista!! Preach it. Technology is part of today’s world. Our kids need to know that life and people have a place, but when they’re going to be on a screen a lot of the time. That’s just how it is today!
And I’m totally on board with these, you know I am!! Maple bacon heaven!!
Technology isn’t going anywhere…and I’m so over the idea that we need to limit it to basically nothing. My kids do all their reports and studying and homework on a computer. We don’t own a set of encyclopedias, we have Google.
Crazy. Just this morning, I was thinking about my 8-year-old. He’s begging for a phone. Then it dawned on me the exact same thing you said: if I had technology at his age, you bet your grandma’s stockings that I would have played with it! … He’s still not getting a phone. Maybe next year. 🙂
ps. Maple and bacon.. YUM!
Amen, Amen, Amen! And these blondies? WANT. PINNED!
Preach, Aimee! I teach high school and I talk to my teens all the time about tech use. They’re actually super worried about the generations to come! They admit they’re total addicts, but you’re right. It’s not their fault. We can’t create new technology and then get upset when people use it. And BTW, it’s not like we’re all not addicted to our phones!
Walkman, ha. I LOVED my Walkman.
These look super good!
Oh my goodness, I need to make these for my bacon loving brother! They look absolutely delicious!
Amen! Love this and totally remember taping songs from the radio 🙂 Love these bars. Bacon gets me every time. Thanks for the link love. 🙂
WOW!!! These are great!! And yes, we were all teenagers once and yet they will drive us crazy just like we just we use to do 🙂
I can’t say too much about the teen subject, because I have zero of them myself. BUT, I do have taste buds. And these Maple Bacon Blondies make their salty-sweet loving selves VERY VERY happy! Pinned!