Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Candied Bacon and Walnut Pancakes

It's a gloomy morning in Pittsburgh. I can't wait to get out of bed and have my morning coffee. It's my favorite part of the day.

COFFEE.

I want to curl up on my couch in my footie pajamas and watch Friends reruns all day. Maybe grab a yogurt or pear for breakfast because I'm too lazy to cook. But wait. I remember I have bacon in the fridge. Yummy, delicious, thick-cut apple-smoked bacon from Trader Joe's (please go buy it right now...you WILL thank me). I'm also kind of craving pancakes. Wait...

CANDIED BACON PANCAKES.

I've never made candied bacon before. But I've always been intrigued. You can never go wrong with bacon. And candied bacon? Have you ever seen a more beautiful combination of words in your life? Doubt it.

Apparently it's really easy to candy bacon. I might have to do this all the time. The possibilities for candied bacon are endless. Put it in cookies? Top cupcakes with it? By itself for a snack? I need to go buy more bacon.

To make the candied bacon, just line a baking sheet with some parchment paper. Lay your bacon on the sheet and season with a little pepper. Then sprinkle some brown sugar over the slices and BAM. DONE. Well, not quite. You still have to cook it.

Don't be scared, little slices of bacon. You're about to make magic,

But just place it in a preheated 325 degree oven for about 20 minutes or so (or until you cannot handle the delicious smell of brown sugar and bacon coming out of your oven any longer). Take it out of the oven and let it cool for a bit. It's going to crisp a little more while it cools. Resist the urge the eat all of the bacon. Or, plan ahead for this like I did  and make an extra slice to eat so you can put the rest in the pancakes.

MAGIC.

Get your favorite pancake batter ready. You can use anything you want. I used a recipe from here. I love whole wheat pancakes, because I'm all about eating healthy. Now go back to your brown sugar covered bacon. Once the bacon is cool, chop it up or crumble it into little pieces and throw it in the batter.

It just seems so perfect.

 When I was looking through my pantry for ingredients earlier, I also found some chopped walnuts, and thought, "Why not?!" So throw some walnuts in there too if you wish. Go crazy. Dance like nobody is watching. Paint the town red. When in Rome. Sorry. I'll stop. Bacon makes me crazy.

Get your griddle nice and hot. Drop the batter by spoonfuls onto the griddle and cook a few minutes on each side.


(Ignore the fact that I'm terrible at flipping pancakes.)

Transfer to your fancy china (because you're fancy) and top with some pure maple syrup. Now sit on your couch and put on your footie pajamas and turn on some Friends reruns. The second part is optional, but I promise it will make the entire experience a lot more fun.

Yum.

When your roommate comes home from work at the end of the day and he asks you how your day was, you tell him that you made bacon walnut pancakes and that there are none left for him. Or you can tell him that you actually made extra and that they're in the freezer and he can have them for breakfast tomorrow. (But don't tell him that they are the ugly ones that you flipped really badly.)

4 comments:

Whistler said...

Good job Lu! Now I'm hungry.. ( i guess that's the purpose)

Unknown said...

Go make some pancakes!

Anonymous said...

Umm I almost bought a french toast cupcake that had candied bacon on it yesterday. But I did not. - Bombs

Unknown said...

I have plans to make said cupcakes at some point in the (hopefully) near future. Come visit and I'll share.

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