Bacon Brownies!

To celebrate our Facebook contest where we are giving away a dozen brownies, we will make the rest of this month Brownie Month!! We will be choosing from amongst some of the suggestions made by our Facebook fans for each week’s brownie. I am really excited about this; so far it has been a ton of fun, and I can never get enough brownies

The first batch of brownies I’m making is dedicated to Rich, who suggested the idea, with a special nod to my friends Paul and Rob, who I know will love them. We are making Bacon Brownies!

These rich, chocolaty, salty brownies are full of little surprise bursts of baconey goodness. If you are skeptical, bacon and chocolate combine amazingly well. The saltiness of the bacon brings out the flavor in the chocolate, and the smokiness compliments the richness in these brownies. Try them and you, too, will be a convert. I mean look how chocolaty and delicious these look!

To make these, I started with a recipe from Chocolatechic.  It is delicious and I plan to use it as a jumping-off point for all my brownies. When you make this week’s brownie, adjust the bacon to your tastes.   I recommend 4-6 pieces (I used 5) but if you want it to taste like pure bacon you could up the ante. Also, I added bacon fat to the brownie mix, but only a little.  If you want your brownies even baconier, I don’t think it will ruin the consistency to add more.  Just be sure to compensate by removing the same amount of butter.

Make sure when you add the bacon that you crumble it up very finely. I left some larger chunks and they got a little chewy. The smaller pieces stayed crisper and added a nice little bacon burst in each bite.

This recipe makes 16 brownies if cut into 4 rows and columns, making 2.25” x 2.25” squares.

Ingredients:

1 ½ sticks unsalted butter

4 oz unsweetened chocolate, chips or coarsely chopped

2 oz bittersweet chocolate, chips or coarsely chopped

4 large eggs

2 cups sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ tsp salt

5 strips bacon

Directions:

1)      Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

2)      Cook the bacon to well-done and drain on a paper towel. Reserve 1 Tbsp bacon fat.

3)      Melt the chocolate, butter, and bacon fat in a heatproof bowl over steam until just melted. Alternatively, you can melt it in the microwave, but just make sure to stir it every 10 seconds.

4)      Add 1 c sugar to the melted chocolate and mix well.

5)      In a mixer with a whisk attachment, put the remaining 1c sugar and 4 eggs.  Mix until just barely blended.

6)      Put half the egg mixture in a separate bowl, and add the chocolate mixture one spoonful at a time, mixing well. Add it slowly at first to prevent cooking the eggs, but after about 4 spoonfuls you can just pour the rest of the chocolate in and mix well.

7)      Beat the other half of the egg mixture until it has doubled in volume.

8)      Fold the rest of the egg mixture into the brownies.

9)      Crumble the bacon into tiny pieces (the smaller the better).

10)   Gently fold the bacon into the chocolate mixture.

11)   Gently fold the vanilla, salt and flour to the chocolate mixture, until the flour is just incorporated.

12)   Pour into a greased 9”x9” baking pan.

13)   Bake for about 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly dry with just little bits of brownie stuck to it.

14)   Let cool for about 20 minutes before eating.

15)   Serve and enjoy!