Bacon: Make Mine Sweet

Good news baconlovers - we can now have our favorite ingredient in every part of every meal: appetizers, yup; main dishes, check; and desserts, you bet!  Following my theory that if you see something twice, it just might be a trend, I'm officially declaring baconized desserts a trend.

Last week at Gramercy Tavern, after having had bacon in a fabulous bean and cauliflower side dish (served in a cast-iron skillet, it was both great looking and so delicious), it turned up in this truly extraordinary dessert

It's a chocolate - mostly milk chocolate and very soft - ganache tartlet topped with a little not-sweet creme fraiche, a few flakes of Maldon sea salt and, here it comes, teensy, tiny bits of crispy bacon behaving just as if they were streusel.  It was perfect! And just right with the milk chocolate.  I don't think the bacon's effect would have been as stunning, or as right, had the chocolate been more bitter.

The tartlet would have made anyone sit up and pay attention, but it made me giggle because, only the night before, at Dovetail, a new restaurant on Manhattan's Upper West Side, the menu offered a brioche bread pudding with bananas and bacon brittle.  Yum, right?

Well, the bacon brittle looked pretty startling on the menu, but it was ringing bells in my head.  A quick Google and I found lots of recipes on sites as different as Chowhound, Off the Bone and the Chicago Sun-Times, which took the recipe from the book, Everything Tastes Better with Bacon.

And I think I remember seeing something about bacon cream - maybe bacon-infused cream that's whipped or put in a siphon - I just can't remember exactly how it was done or where I saw it.  But I'm not worried, I have a feeling it will turn up soon.  Maybe even tomorrow night ...

Any bacon sweets in your neighborhood?  Maybe even chez you?

Comments

[Sam]

Le Piegon in Portland Oregon has a warm sweet peach cornbread topped with maple ice cream and hot bits of (you guessed it) bacon for dessert. It is perhaps one of the best things I have put in my mouth in 2007. Warm soft cornbread, cold maple ice cream and crispy hot bits of salty bacon. Killer.

[Jennifer]

I got a candied bacon recipe from a Gourmet magazine about a year ago (possibly Feb 2007) that is LOVELY, particularly with a chestnut custard. Easy to make, too. Even better with home cured bacon.

If you really want to add oomph to a lemon filling... add some limoncello... I've added it to a lemon sauce recipe from the Joy of Cooking, and it would make an old gym sock taste good.

[Julie Logue-Riordan]

Mmmmm! Bacon the party girl loves to go with everything; sweet or savory. My favorite sweet bacon pairing ....olive oil ice cream. Use the bacon as a spoon for the ice cream. Sweet bacon dreams.

[Michelle F.]

For the past six years I have hosted a bacon and Cote-Rotie party where your admission is a bottle of Cote-Rotie and a bacon based dish. I always try and do dessert and we have had such things as bacon baklava,bacon brittle, bacon chocolate chip cookies,bacon apple pie and my personal favorite,bacon peanut butter balls.Not sure if they still make them but Compass in NYC used to serve chocolate covered pork rinds that would make a grown man weep, they were that good.

[Dorie]

If there isn't an official bacon-dessert trend out in the world, I think we might have started one - what great bacon ideas are tucked into your comments!

Kathryn, I think you're right - it was the bacon cream from Dessert Truck! Thank you for freeing an extra brain cell for me.

Jaye, I have a feeling we'd all like to be going to your bacon potluck supper. And I, for one, would *love* to taste your bacon macarons. I've often wondered (you'd think I had nothing else to think about, right?), why I haven't found a bacon macaron in Paris. With macarons made with truffles (black and white), ketchup, foie gras, balsamic vinegar and tomatoes, you'd think bacon would be a natural.

Again, thank you all. If anything else comes to mind -let us know. And, Oliverde, I'm glad you got a customs official with a sense of humor. I've lost a couple of sausages on a couple of occasions to those guys.

[jaye joseph]

This was inspiration for me this weekend. I'm going to a bacon-themed potluck tomorrow night, so I've make macarons using bacon. One is a maple buttercream with bacon candy (brown-sugar roasted bacon) filling and one is a bacon-infused chocolate ganache filled.

[kathryn]

Blue Smoke in NYC (also a Danny Meyer restaurant) has also done a bacon/french toast bread pudding before. And let's not forget the Benton's Old Fashioned cocktail at PDT.

The bacon creme anglaise you may be thinking of is at the Dessert Truck in NYC. Momofuku Ssam Bar also, until recently, did an Amish Cheddar Shortcake with ham cream (soak a ham on cream, and the whip as usual).

The Vosges bacon bar is not as good as the Vosges bacon truffle, but the UES Vosges location does make chocolate-bacon panini.

[Kristen]

Last night at Tilth in Seattle we had bacon in our dessert and my mind went straight to this post! We had gala apple crisp with caramel sauce and creme fraiche with bits of crispy bacon on top - it was delicious. Now I'll be looking for baconized desserts everywhere!

[Katje Sabin]

I experimented with this last summer a bit... pics and recipes and comments over here: http://moodyfoodie.livejournal.com/18040.html#cutid1 ... I really liked the combo of toasted pecans and bacon, I should play with that some more... maybe in some sort of shortbread?

Mmmm, bacon!

[Cathy]

Ohhhh that GT dessert looks spectacular!

My friend Meg Grace, chef at NYC's The Redhead (a bar slowly morphing into a restaurant), makes divine bacon brittle. She adds a pinch of Old Bay seasoning for that je ne sais quoi every good bar snack should have.

We should have ordered the bread pudding at Dovetail, Dorie. ;-}

[Oliverde]

I confess to having bought that book a few years ago, based solely on the title. I've also have been stopped by security at tiny Sun Valley airport because my suitcase was full of the local bacon....they got a good laugh out of this NYorker's terroristic activities....oh joy. ;-)
PS: Thank you muchly for the heads up on the lemon bars, I've tried it with French style curd (the tartlet filling with loads of butter) but it was just a tad too rich. Also too oozy when cutting. Guess it's back to the kitchen for more experiments.
Oh, and Joy of Cooking recipe makes the lemon filling with baking powder.... it isn't lemony enough though.

[Dwain]

I've added bacon to rice crispie treats - delish!

[Kerrin]

yum! i was going to mention the Vosges bacon bar, but someone beat me to it! :) it's fantastic, even if in small doses - i wouldn't say it satisfies a pure chocolate craving, but amazing how the flavors work. the idea came from the chocolatier's childhood memories of chocolate chip pancakes with maple syrup and of course, bacon. chocolate and bacon, it's been there all along!

[Eileen]

Wanted to pass my blog on to you. I love reading your page every day!

Eileen
www.livingtastefully.com

[Mara]

For the person who doesn't have New York inventive chefs hanging out in their own backyard, Vosges chocolate has a bacon chocolate bar http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/product/bacon_exotic_candy_bar/exotic_candy_bars

If even mass produced (albeit very good) kooky chocolate makers are on the bacon train, I agree, we've reached trend status.

[Ashley]

mmmmm bacon! That sounds amazing. Salty and sweet - there is nothing better.

[Dorie]

Brilynn, I meant to mention your bacon brittle, because I looked at it - and admired it - several times.

For those of you who'd like a good look at luscious bacon brittle, go to Brilynn's Jumbo Empanadas (actually, you should visit Brilynn's blog often and for lots of delicious reasons - I do)

http://jumboempanadas.blogspot.com/2007/04/like-cocaine-for-pig-lovers.html

[brilynn]

I've made bacon brittle before! Everyone loved it.
I've been tempted on numerous occasions to make bacon ice cream...