August is almost here and that means one thing to a lot of people….vacation.  Fortunately for me, a lot of my friends consider coming to my house a vacation!  (If you ever have seen my house, you would realize William Shatner couldn’t get them a great deal anywhere better so they had to come here.)

Our guests this weekend were college friends of my husbands.  Our friend, Michelle, made a comment to me about my love of bacon.  I was shocked that I didn’t hide my love affair.  Was it the 3 Little Piggy Burger I made for dinner?  Or was it the extra bacon we put on the burgers?  Maybe it was the breakfast dish I made that had potatoes sautéed in bacon juice?

I had always loved bacon but it just wasn’t something I talked about openly.  It seems like bacon is now the “cool” food so I don’t feel so odd talking about how much I adore it.  (Kind of like when I was a teenager and still played with Cabbage Patch Kids.  Wait, that was never cool, was it?)

Michelle’s husband, Brad, asked if I had ever tried making caramelized bacon.  I replied that I hadn’t but took his question as a challenge.  I had heard of it but I didn’t understand what could possibly make the smoky, salty wonderfulness (this is not a word unless you are talking about bacon) of bacon any better.

Caramelized Bacon
Ingredients
  • 6 slices of thick cut bacon
  • 1/3 cup light brown sugar
  • 1-2 Tbsp water
Instructions
  1. Oven 400 degrees.
  2. Place a piece of parchment paper on a large, deep rimmed baking sheet. Set aside.
  3. In a small bowl, mix sugar with about one tablespoon of water. You don’t want to make it dissolve, you want slurry.
  4. Take one piece of bacon at a time and put it in the sugar slurry. Make sure the bacon is coated. (When I made it, the bacon strips resembled wallpaper strips. I would pick one up and pull the paste down off of the strip.)
  5. Use your fingers to gently remove the excess sugar and lay flat on your baking sheet.
  6. Repeat with the additional strips of bacon.
  7. Bake for 8 minutes per side. If it isn’t crispy at the end of the 16 minutes, continue to bake but watch it so the sugar doesn’t scorch.
  8. Use tongs and let cool a few minutes on a cooling rack.
Notes

A couple of my faithful readers told me to add some cayenne pepper to add a little heat. I tried it and would say try it both ways!

This bacon can be eaten alone as a sweet treat, added in contrast to a savory dish or as a dessert topping.  I confess that the process of coating bacon in brown sugar made me skeptical but my taste buds had a different opinion.  I think I have my new favorite treat to serve guest on their “ba”cation!