Yes. It’s true. We finally did it. If you liked bacon cinnamon rolls, you’re going to love this. The picture above is the result of the coming together of two major food groups. Meat and brownies (yes, they’re a food group) have finally found common ground and joined forces to form a uniquely irresistible combination of flavors. Not since chocolate and peanut butter came together to create the peanut butter cup have we seen the introduction of such a Smastey™ dessert food. The good news is that you too can make bacon brownies. Here’s how.
The bacon brownies started, like so many other delicious dishes, with a trip to the grocery store.
There it is. This huge stack of fresh sliced bacon is selling for $3.49/lb. (That’s US$3.49/450g for all you international bacon fans.) I only used 4 slices for the bacon brownies, but I can always eat more, so I bought a full pound of bacon.
Next, I needed to get the brownie mix. I guess it’s been a while since I made brownies, because I was blown away when I discovered that there are no fewer than 20 types of brownie mix. No-Pudge Fudge, Dark Chocolate, Peanut Butter. The list is long and delicious. I settled on the Betty Crocker Turtle Brownie mix. (It comes with a bag of caramel – how could I resist?)
Next up, eggs and vegetable oil.
Okay, time to get down to it.
1) Pre-heat your oven to 350°F.
2) Grease a 13”x9” baking pan. (8” and 9” square pans will also work just fine.)
3) Heat up a frying pan. Pre-cook some bacon for about 3 minutes per side. Not too much – we don’t want to totally fry it, we just want to get it a little past raw. Raw is bad for taste as well as for your intestinal tract. The bacon should just be starting to brown and might be a little crispy.
4) When the bacon is ready, set it aside on a plate lined with paper towels to help drain some of the grease.
5) Following the directions on the box, combine the brownie mix, vegetable oil, water and eggs.
6) When the batter is ready, pour slightly less than half of it into the pan.
7) Now add the bacon. You can go as big or as small as you like. That’s the great thing about bacon – there’s no wrong amount unless you don’t have enough! For this batch, I used four strips of bacon. I only added bacon to half the batch because I wanted to be able to compare the taste of bacon brownies to regular brownies. If I were making a full batch I probably would have used 8-10 slices.
Now add the rest of the brownie batter on top of the bacon. Be sure to cover it all up.
9) A little tasty caramel to finish it off.
10) It’s ready for the oven, so take another look at the box and bake it for however long it says. Betty Crocker suggested 27 minutes, but I found that the brownies were done in just 22.
11) Let the brownies cool for a few minutes, then cut with a sharp knife and make your wife/husband/neighbor/friend/stranger walking by come taste them with you.
I have to say, bacon brownies are a clear winner. There is something magical about the combination of chocolate and bacon. In fact, we did a post some time ago about chocolate covered bacon. Bacon brownies are no exception. The creamy, gooey caramel. The moist chocolate. The salty bacon. This batch had a near perfect bacon infusion. The taste of bacon was subtle, coming through on the finish instead of overpowering the palette, which was the problem with bacon lemon bars. (Coming soon, I’m sorry to say.)
I highly recommend that every one of you run out and buy some bacon and some brownie mix and try this one for yourselves. Bacon brownies blew away the SRI with a Smaste™ rating of 54.639, which is the highest Smaste™ rating ever! An amazing dessert that can be eaten at any hour.
Life is good. Bacon is better.
– Mike
