Gather your ingredients together
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Line your 12 cup standard muffin pans with paper cupcake liners (2 pans total)
Get two baking sheet pans and line them with parchment paper and place your muffin pans on the baking sheet pans. (This ensure easy clean up if you have any spills)
In a large bowl, add your cocoa, flour, baking powder and salt.
Whisk ingredients together and set aside.
Let’s get your mixer ready, first you will need to attach a paddle attachment.
Then add your butter and sugar into your mixing bowl.
Place mixer on medium speed and mix your butter and sugar until light and fluffy (This process is called creaming)
Add in your eggs one at a time and beat well after each egg is incorporated (Always crack eggs into individual contains before adding to your mix. This will prevent a bad egg from accidentally mixing in and ruining your whole batch)
After you have added your eggs, add in your Vanilla Bean Paste and turn mixer on low.
While your mixer is on low speed, Add in your Cocoa flour mix.
Once flour is incorporate and the mixer is still on low speed. Add in your sour cream and mix until fully blended. Now we will be scooping into our cupcake liners.
Using your scooper, evenly distribute batter into your cupcake liners filling each one ¾ of the way.
Once complete, Place into your preheated oven.
Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until you can still a toothpick in the center and it comes out clean.
Remove from oven and let cool in pan for about 5 minutes,
After they have cooled for about 5 minutes. Transfer your cupcakes from the pan to a cooling rack to completely cool off. Now let’s start on the Bacon Bark.