Pig Candy, Dammit!!!

The Before:



‎1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
12 slices of thick cut bacon cut in half

Preheat oven to 375

Combine all other dry ingredients in a ziplock baggie. Add bacon and work bag to coat bacon thickly with sugar. Cover a baking sheet with tinfoil and lay a baking rack on top. Twist bacon into candy canes shape and lay on rack. Set timer for 10 minutes and bake. Check after 15 minutes and if not crisp and candied keep checking every 5 minutes until done.

Optional, if you want it really peppery, Lay slices of bacon on wax paper and grind generous amounts of black pepper on them. Pat pepper onto bacon. Let sit for 20 minutes, flip, and repeat pepper on other side. Or use peppered bacon.

Right out of the oven:


All cool and any excess fat blotted off:


It would be a great stir stick for a bacon vodka martini.

Might try it without the pepper and a longer cooking time. Wife hates pepper and likes her bacon almost burnt.

The total cooking time of this batch came out to be closer to 35 minutes. It's not hard, but chewy.

Just keep an eye on it, I'm sure differnt bacon may cook longer or shorter depending on the cut and the fat content.

Next time I'm going to let the sugar cure the bacon overnight and see if it will be absorbed into the bacon and fat, and how that will end up.

Damn those are pretty!!! I've been thinking of a maple-bourbon bacon ice cream that this would be awesome with.

I think the overnight cure is a great idea. If it gets too watery in the bag you could probably dust it with a touch more brown surgar at baking time.

Rob_B said:

I think the overnight cure is a great idea. If it gets too watery in the bag you could probably dust it with a touch more brown surgar at baking time.

Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking. A fresh tossing before baking.

I had some for "breakfast" this morning. Damn yummy.

Oh. Amai. Agaud.




I must have these....

Damn they look yummy. Of course, I can't help but comment on the irony of the link below your post about the open heart surgery....

Fine looking bacon. I like the extra black pepper idea. Just made a big bowl of panfried black-pepper papadum the other day. Talk about something horribly addicting, holy cats.

Posted a Bacon Brittle (uses nuts) recipe a bit ago ... a different twist on the idea.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f56/bacon-candy-new-years-eve-290514/

So that's the source of the Open Heart Dramedy...