After poring over hundreds of entries in our first-ever secret-ingredient recipe contest, we discovered that you'll make just about anything with maple syrup – maple-glazed pizza, maple scallops, maple chickpeas. In the end, picking the champion of our November/December 2008 contest was a no-brainer: Kara Scow's maple bacon cupcakes. They're extra moist, and deliciously sweet and salty. It's a flavor combo Scow discovered long before she whipped up these winners: "When I was a kid," she says, "I'd go to IHOP and get French toast with maple syrup and bacon and eat it all together."
