Gooey Caramel Bacon Brownies

Who doesn’t love bacon (even some vegetarians, I am told)? I recently came across The Bacon Book, an e-cookbook that has recipes from a few fellow bloggers. And of course all the recipes contain bacon, some savoury and some sweet.

When I saw a recipe for Caramel Bacon Brownies, I knew I had to give it a go. I had previously made Bacon Chocolate Chop cookies, which weren’t a huge hit I have to be honest. And the bacon flavoured chocolate bar I had from Dylan’s Candy Bar recently was something of an acquired taste. But I wanted to persevere with this fad for baking with bacon!

The recipe was from Stephsbitebybite.com. I have to be honest and say I found some of the measurements way off – I used a third of the cream recommended in the recipe and still had a whole jar of caramel bacon sauce left over (not a bad thing)! I also cut the recommended baking time down to 30 minutes – any longer and they would have burned. I used bacon lardons instead of bacon slices and used my own brownie recipe. So we can probably say my brownies were inspired by Steph’s.

Bacon Caramel Ingredients:

200 grams smoked bacon lardons

Reserved fat of the above bacon

250 ml double cream

225 grams granulated sugar

85 grams unsalted butter

Adapted from Stephsbitebybite.com

Brownie Recipe (omit the Rolos and frosting!)

Method:

In a frying pan, fry off the bacon lardons until darker in colour and crisp. Remove the lardons with tongs, onto a plate lined with kitchen paper. Keep the bacon fat in the pan and whisk in the cream. Allow to cool to room temperature.

In a large saucepan, melt the sugar over high heat and when it reaches an amber colour, remove from the heat and stir in the butter and bacon cream. It will splatter a wee bit but keep stirring until the butter has melted. Stir in 100 – 150 grams of the bacon lardons and allow to sauce to cool to room temp.

Preheat the oven to 180^oC, line an 8”x8” pan with foil and prepare the brownies as directed in the recipe (without the Rolos of course).  Pour half the brownie batter into the pan and smooth out. Dollop about a quarter of the bacon caramel sauce on top of the brownies and smooth it out as much as possible. Pour the remaining brownie batter on top and smooth out. Lastly, spoon 5 to 6 tablespoons of the bacon caramel on top of the brownies and with a knife or the end of a teaspoon, swirl the caramel with the brownie batter. 

Pop into the oven for 30 minutes, the edges will start to look dry, so you can tell it is cooked. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

Remove from the pan and foil, cutting the brownies into squares. These brownies are very gooey and are best eaten on a plate with a fork. They are delicious and the fudginess of the brownies compliments the slightly salty caramel sauce, and the chew of the bacon. Like I said you will have caramel sauce left over – good to drizzle on ice cream, or just eat with a spoon. Enjoy :0)

Pop over to have a look at The Bacon Book for more great recipes such as Bacon Cinnamon Buns, Pepper and Bacon Risotto, Bacon Polenta Pancakes!