One word. Orgasmic. All I can say is, I had a pound of bacon for dinner tonight and I’m not ashamed. If you love bacon, this is a must try. If you don’t love bacon, I feel sorry for you.
The bestie had said she was going to try to make bacon candy for our annual holiday party this weekend. I was super stoked. Then, I found a bottle of “Ancho Reyes” Ancho Chile Liqueur at work, and thought, “this would be BOMB with bacon” and wanted to make my own. (Also, lesbehonest. . . bacon is good with everything). This liqueur is spicy and sweet and brings just the right amount of heat. Next experiment will be in Mexican Hot chocolate or a spicy margarita.
What You’ll Need:
- 1.5 lbs thick cut hickory smoked bacon
- 3 Tbsp Ancho Reyes liqueur
- 2 1/2 Tbsp Maple Syrup
- 1/2 tsp hot chili powder
- 1/2 c brown sugar
- Give your bacon a nice little ice bath. Let it soak in the ice water for just a few minutes before you begin. This will prevent your bacon from shrinking up to a teensy weensy morsel of it’s former self.
- Take bacon out and pat dry on paper towels.
- Mix liqueur, maple syrup and chili powder.
- Dip bacon in mixture.
- Dredge through brown sugar. Lightly! Be easy, E. You’ll want enough sugar to caramelize, but don’t want it to be a sugar-bomb.
- Place on lined baking sheets, spread far enough apart the slices are NOT touching.
- Sprinkle extra chile powder on here if you want it to have some extra heat.
- Bake at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes. Check your bacon!! It will cook faster or slower depending on the coating of your pan. I put two pans in at the same time, and also rotated them and one pan was done before the other. I drained the bacon grease several times too to yield a crispier product. S0- keep an eye on them! Total bake time was approximately 20 minutes.
- Let bacon cool slightly- once cooled the caramelization should set up and you have your candy! YUMMMMMM.
I made a little bouquet with mine, as you can see, but honestly we ate it all. #sorryimnotsorry
I’d also like to point out that while the liqueur and chili powder are spicy by themselves, the fat from the bacon and the sweetness from the sugar virtually cut out all spice. This bacon still had great flavor, but as I suggested, if you want a little extra heat, I would add some extra chili powder before baking, or even a little Sriracha to the liqueur mixture.
Off to sleep off my bacon coma.
Make some. You know you want to.
xo Kelli
