As you know, we here at “Bacon Today” pride ourselves on consistent ability to always be 3 or 4 steps ahead of the game when it comes to everything worthy of being known in the wonderful world of bacon.

Clearly one of our huge advantages in being able to stay well ahead of the game is the very positive, close-knit relationship that we have with out loyal, long time readers and friends.

Here’s a perfect example of that personal “heads up” connection that keeps us on the cutting edge whenever anything of note is about to, or has just taken place, anywhere on the planet, that involves gourmet bacon.

Here’s an important communiqué’ that just came into us from our good friend “Doctor Atomic” regarding his latest and possibly greatest creative, culinary concoction from his esoterically eclectic laboratory deep within his mysterious, secret lair.

This is the good Doctor’s story, as expressed in his very own words:

“I make ice cream at home and a friend requested a Bourbon and Bacon flavor from me. After thinking about it for awhile what I came up with was Butterscotch and Bourbon Ice Cream with Bacon and Butter Toffee chips.

I started by making a reduction of Markers Mark Bourbon and Butterscotch. I’ve tried baking Bacon before, but I find that good old fashioned frying in a pan gives the best result.

The rest was normal fair ice cream base, eggs, milk, cream and sugar, all organic. I do heat my base to make a custard. Once I had incorporated the syrup and base I put them in the fridge to cool over night, as well as the now fried and chopped bacon.

The Toffee chips went into the freezer. The next day the mixture went into the ice cream maker. The bits were added near the end. With the Bourbon I wanted to give the ice cream a good amount of time to set so it was placed into the freezer overnight.

The next day we enjoyed the result! The flavors came out in layers. The first thing you taste is the slight bite of the Bourbon followed by the sweet of the Butterscotch. The chewy Bacon then jumps to the front with it’s smoky and saltiness followed closely by the crunchy sweet of the toffee.”

Doctor Atomic – Keeping the world safe for Ice Cream

James Boo is the founder, editor and head writer of “The Eaten Path”, a blog that has come to describe itself as “The Gastronome’s Guide To Travel – The Globetrotter’s Guide To Food. This blog delivers the story of a meal. Sometimes that story is specifically about the meal, while other times it’s about the journey to get to the meal.

In a post called “Six Degrees of Caramelized Bacon,” Mr. Boo explained the inspiration and the journey to create what he dubbed “Bacon Corn Dog Ice Cream.” I was sure that true, dedicated “Baconistas” around the globe would be quite interested, dare I say, even inspired by this story that I knew it had to shared now, as the hot, sultry and sweltering days of summer begin to make their presence known.

After all, over the generations, summer has come to mean: Baseball, Hot Dogs, Bacon & Ice Cream in the consciousness of America. Assuming one is open to eating a culinary concoction that does NOT include a baseball, this is just what the doctor ordered.

Here’s what Mr. Boo has to say about his bountifully bacony creation in his own words:

“Suffice it to say, I discovered who my true friends were when I began spread the message of bacon corn dog ice cream and its potential benefits for human civilization. Meg and the Mathemagician immediately volunteered to help me realize this vision, and in two weeks I was mixing corn dog batter in their kitchen. 
 
I used a disheveled Wikihow recipe for the corn dogs, replacing full sized frankfurters with cocktail wieners. My first few attempts were overcooked and uneven, but eventually I mastered the art of the coat-and-fry, turning out frank-filled hush puppies that plumped, crisped, and melted in my mouth in one ineffable bite. The main event, of course, was the groundbreaking submersion of mini corn dogs into a river of ice cream. To administer our great experiment, Meg prepared what would become the greatest ice cream I have ever tasted.

She followed a recipe for candied bacon ice cream, with two key changes. The first was to eliminate the candying process, instead frying and chopping the bacon to mix, unadorned, into the final product. The second change was to replace the butter in our ice cream custard with pure bacon fat.

The results of this alteration were immense: while the taste of bacon emerged as a subtle undercurrent, the richness of the mixture was downright devilry. Sensations of maple, meat, and brown sugar streamed from the spoon in deceptively smooth ribbons of flavor, each more consummate than the last.

The fresh bacon bits completed the picture perfectly, providing a savory punch and a scatter shot of focus for the bacon fat in the ice cream.
Having taken the penultimate step towards my black bulb thought bubble, I fried up a handful of mini-corn dogs, mixed them into my bowl of ice cream, and immediately lifted the spoon to my mouth. The freshly fried cornmeal batter promptly absorbed its host, not unlike the fried shell of tempura ice cream.

My bite into the corn dog retained the crisp of its batter, which quickly gave way to a delightfully blended texture of crumbs and cream, all swirling around the pronounced bite of a cocktail frankfurter in its prime.

While the intrusion of a streetwise hot dog into the more sophisticated realm of bacon fat and milk brought an abrupt end to the symphony of flavor, it remained reassuring to anyone who’s ever wondered if chicken fried bacon would be great or amazing, or jumped at the chance to taste a fresh batch of Kool-Aid pickles.”

James Boo, we proudly salute your adventurous, culinary “bacon-thusiasm” Sir!

Check out this cute little video. (Well, to my English-speaking ears it’s cute, to a Japanese audience it’s probably just an ad for AOL Food.)

This is a Japanese interpretation of some of the many things that bacon is delicious with.

What are some of your favorite things to pair with bacon?

-- Mike

Video submitted by Leo V.

In high school, video day was always a special day. If you were burned out on the normal grind it was a day when you would get a different visual stimulus for a while. If you were goth it was an opportunity to sit in the dark for a few minutes. If you were sleepy, it was a chance to take a nap. “Real Life” isn’t much different from high school. Even adults get bored, and it’s the official position of Bacon Today that we are here to combat repetitive bored-ness.

It’s been a while since we brought you a video and today’s filmstrip is a “cool” one. Yes, it’s bacon ice cream! In this video, a hoity-toity chef tell us how to make this 2-day hoity-toity dessert. It’s made of bacon and eggs, so it’s basically breakfast served on a fancy plate with a different name, but it looks interesting regardless.

The only really strange thing are the mushrooms that look like raisins. I can’t say that this looks like the most delicious bacon dessert I’ve ever seen, but it doesn’t repulse me, either. 

-- Mike