Spicy Candied Bacon

Studying gave me serious cases of the munchies. No lie. Checked the fridge for tasty drinks. None. Checked everywhere in kitchen for random snacks. Nada. Well, except for those stale/raw almonds. Then I remembered that I had some bacon left from previous bacon adventures. My fatty mind was craving something sweet. The light bulb went on! I also remembered seeing a recipe for Spicy Candied Bacon from Serious Eats.

What do you think my bright idea was?



What's so great about this recipe is that it only has 3 ingredients and I'm basically in love with all three. First love, brown sugar, 1/3 cup.



Second love, something spicy. In this case, I used cayenne pepper powder. I suppose other chili powder would work great, too, I just happened to only have cayenne. I also sprinkled on some red pepper flakes for the fun of it (the pepper flakes weren't spicy). I used about 1.5 tablespoons, but use however much you think you can handle.



Third love, delicious, fatty bacon. Good thing I had thick cut bacon because I think it provides more "meat" to love. Although, now that I think about it, maybe the thin cut bacon would end up being crispier. That will be another experiment for another day.



All nicely coated in the mouthwatering sugar and cayenne powder. I was literally drooling when I prepared these. There's a little part in my brain that tells my mouth to salivate every time I smell something spicy. I think my parents did psychological tricks on me when I was little.



That stuff went into the preheated oven at 300 degrees F. This is what they look like after the first 5 minutes...



...and after 20 minutes.



Done after 35 minutes!

I find that it was rather fitting that when I was dredging the bacon in that heavenly sugar and chili mixture, the song That's Amore by Dean Martin came up on my playlist. It was totally amoooooreeey.



You know you want to look at one more photo of this deliciousness.

When Helen comes back from Pittsburgh 3 months from now, she will find a 300 lbs LeTran. Everyone else will not see a big difference because they see me often enough to not notice the subtle bacon fat glued to my thighs.

Let's end this on an even happier note. While looking for the link to the recipe, I found that someone even made Candied Bacon Ice Cream. That will be my next love. I feel like Brendan should be here to support/challenge me to make this fattiest treat.