[h1]Pig Candy[/h1]
Once I had my tenderloin smoke done on Friday, and my Peanut Butter Meltaways made on Saturday, Sunday was a free day. So….I decided to try something I had often thought about. Yep, Pig Candy was about to become a reality in our house.
Now, I’ve never made pig candy, so I scoured this site and the internet for various methods and recipes. I had already decided to cook the bacon in the oven, as making Pig Candy struck me as being “pretty messy” and working next to the sink seemed like a great idea. Boy, was that an understatement!!
The idea of Pig Candy struck a chord in my step-daughter and she requested that I make her some too. So 1 pound of bacon for her and 1 pound for us.
I combined several recipes, and left out the black and cayenne pepper (Miss Linda just does NOT do hot—sigh). What I was left with was a pretty basic recipe.
Mix 1/3 cup PURE Maple Syrup with ½ cup of brown sugar. That’s it.
So, off to the store for bacon and pure maple syrup. I immediately found some from La Belle Provence, labeled PURE.
Then it was back home; time to roll up the sleeves.
I laid out each strip of bacon on my jerky grills (with screen mesh)—each pound of bacon required 2 grills, so I decided to make things easier and just do 2 batches of 1 pound each.
Once the bacon was arranged on the grills, with space between them, I brushed on a thick layer of the topping. Turning the strips over, I did the same on the other side. Then it was into a 400*F oven for 15 minutes. Each strip of bacon was given another coating of the brown sugar/maple syrup mixture (both sides) and returned to the oven (bottom side of each strip now turned up) for an additional 11 minutes.
The bacon was looking good by now, so I removed it from the grills onto a plate. At this point, I felt an obligation to do some quality control testing. Crunchy and delicious .
The entire procedure was repeated on Batch #2.
I had heard horror stories about the mess left after cooking this sugar and syrup laden bacon, so, as with just about everything I cook, I sprayed the grills and screens first with Pam. Clean up was a breeze. The screens went straight from the grills into the garbage—they took most of the mess and were beyond salvage without a lot of work. The grills took very little scrubbing and then went into the dishwasher, to emerge next morning looking new.
So, how was it? It was great, although it could have easily used some pepper (sigh).
Will I make it again? Probably, but not very often. It really is a PIA job, coating and turning each rasher twice. So Pig Candy goes into the “It was good. Someday I’ll make it again” file.
And the last question, would I recommend this to anyone else? Absolutely. It’s great. But real messy and time consuming.
Thanks for looking
Gary
Once I had my tenderloin smoke done on Friday, and my Peanut Butter Meltaways made on Saturday, Sunday was a free day. So….I decided to try something I had often thought about. Yep, Pig Candy was about to become a reality in our house.
Now, I’ve never made pig candy, so I scoured this site and the internet for various methods and recipes. I had already decided to cook the bacon in the oven, as making Pig Candy struck me as being “pretty messy” and working next to the sink seemed like a great idea. Boy, was that an understatement!!
The idea of Pig Candy struck a chord in my step-daughter and she requested that I make her some too. So 1 pound of bacon for her and 1 pound for us.
I combined several recipes, and left out the black and cayenne pepper (Miss Linda just does NOT do hot—sigh). What I was left with was a pretty basic recipe.
Mix 1/3 cup PURE Maple Syrup with ½ cup of brown sugar. That’s it.
So, off to the store for bacon and pure maple syrup. I immediately found some from La Belle Provence, labeled PURE.
Then it was back home; time to roll up the sleeves.
I laid out each strip of bacon on my jerky grills (with screen mesh)—each pound of bacon required 2 grills, so I decided to make things easier and just do 2 batches of 1 pound each.
Once the bacon was arranged on the grills, with space between them, I brushed on a thick layer of the topping. Turning the strips over, I did the same on the other side. Then it was into a 400*F oven for 15 minutes. Each strip of bacon was given another coating of the brown sugar/maple syrup mixture (both sides) and returned to the oven (bottom side of each strip now turned up) for an additional 11 minutes.
The bacon was looking good by now, so I removed it from the grills onto a plate. At this point, I felt an obligation to do some quality control testing. Crunchy and delicious .
The entire procedure was repeated on Batch #2.
I had heard horror stories about the mess left after cooking this sugar and syrup laden bacon, so, as with just about everything I cook, I sprayed the grills and screens first with Pam. Clean up was a breeze. The screens went straight from the grills into the garbage—they took most of the mess and were beyond salvage without a lot of work. The grills took very little scrubbing and then went into the dishwasher, to emerge next morning looking new.
So, how was it? It was great, although it could have easily used some pepper (sigh).
Will I make it again? Probably, but not very often. It really is a PIA job, coating and turning each rasher twice. So Pig Candy goes into the “It was good. Someday I’ll make it again” file.
And the last question, would I recommend this to anyone else? Absolutely. It’s great. But real messy and time consuming.
Thanks for looking
Gary
