In a perfect world there would be a sweet indulgent treat that would take almost no skill, and almost no time to make. This treat would make people really happy and have them begging you to make more, since there's no way it's easy enough for just about anybody to make. Ladies and gentlemen, I have such a recipe. This recipe takes little effort, almost no skill, and everybody I took these to demanded more. One person even stole the extras to take home to his family.
What I'm talking about is chocolate covered candied bacon. It sounds decadent, yet down to earth, but more importantly it sounds way more complicated than it actually is to make. You'll need a few basic ingredients that most people are very familiar with. Bacon, brown sugar, cinnamon, and chocolate chips. You'll also need two baking pans, and either parchment paper or silicon baking sheet liners. To start off, cut your bacon in half, or thirds, or don't cut it at all. It all depends on how you plan on serving these treats. I chose to cut them into thirds since I was planning on taking these to a public place with a few people around and I wanted them to be easy to eat by hand.
After you've cut the bacon, lay it out on your baking tray that is lined with the parchment paper or silicon tray liners (I prefer the tray liners myself). Then cover the bacon with brown sugar, you want your bacon to have a good solid layer of brown sugar because it's going to melt, and a bunch of it will run off. Then sprinkle on a little cinnamon, this is totally optional, and you can put on as much as you like. Heat your over to 350, and once it's heated put in the tray with the bacon and brown sugar.
After seven and a half minutes, take out your bacon, flip it, and coat it in more brown sugar. You'll likely need some tongs to do this, although a spatula might work. Put your bacon back in the oven for another seven and a half minutes. Once it's cooked, take the bacon out and let it cool for about 15 or 20 minutes. You basically want the bacon to firm up a bit. When the bacon is just about cooled, take about one cup of chocolate chips for every 5 slices of bacon, unless you really like chocolate, in which case go nuts. Microwave your chocolate chips for about one minute on high.
When you take the chocolate chips out of the microwave you might notice that they don't look very different, that's OK. You'll also notice that the bowl they're in is pretty hot, and some of the chips at the bottom are melted. Quickly stir your chocolate chips, after a minute or so you'll notice that your chocolate chips are melting pretty well. Keep stirring and don't be fooled about putting the chocolate chips back in the microwave. This technique tempers the chocolate perfectly for this recipe.
After you've stirred your chocolate chips to the point when they're melted into a smooth milk chocolate, it's time to cover your bacon. You could try and dip the bacon, but I've had a pretty hard time making that work. I imagine if you added some cream to the chocolate chips it might be smooth enough to get a good dip, but since we're only using the chocolate, it's still too dense. So what I suggest is to use a spoon or a piping bag and just dump the chocolate on the bacon. I like to poor it on half of the bacon, and lay it on fairly thick. If you're more of a bacon fan than a chocolate fan, you might want to go a little lighter, maybe a fancy drizzle on the top.
After you bacon is decorated to your liking, let it set for about 30 minutes, then refrigerate. If you really like what you're seeing, you can pretty much eat these immediately after you pour the chocolate on them, but the chocolate will be pretty gooey at this point, not that that's a bad thing. If you let them set in your fridge overnight, they'll be much easier to transport, and a little easier to eat. So there you go, simple chocolate covered candied bacon.
CC
No comments:
Post a Comment