It is rare to meet a bloke who doesn’t love bacon. It is like men are genetically programmed to be obsessed with bacon. And beer, for that matter. And beef. Did I just figure out the holy trinity for men? Beer, Beef and Bacon. This candy doesn’t have beef or beer in it. I did make a version with beer, but it was more effort to make, you couldn’t actually taste the beer in it and it had a much thicker candy coating which I thought made it far too sweet. This one is super simple to make. It is actually a recipe by Sunny Anderson (an American celebrity chef) which she calls Bacon Bark. I changed the name because after 3 attempts to make it, it never came out like “bark” and I am not convinced it could because there is simply not enough toffee/candy to spread and hold the bacon and nuts together. It does stick together in chunks, but not like “bark”. So I thought candy was a more suitable name for it. It’s like candied nuts – but with bacon added. You can break it up completely, all leave it in bigger chunks (which I prefer).
The ingredients are exactly the same as Sunny’s recipe but I rewrote it with more instructions so you can benefit from my failed efforts. The first time I made it, it didn’t come out like candy, more like a sticky caramel. This was because there was too much bacon fat, so I added the step to drain excess fat off the baking tray before adding the nuts. The second time I made it, I didn’t use baking / parchment paper which the recipe said was optional, but it’s definitely necessary because otherwise the toffee gets stuck on the baking tray. Valentine’s Day is around the corner. Homemade Man Candy. Now that’s a priceless gift! – Nagi
