Bacon Brownies – How Are These Not Delicious?

Well, it had to happen eventually. It’s unrealistic for all 100 recipes I make this year to be knockouts so I shouldn’t be disappointed that the thirteenth recipe I made was a bust. The truth is, I had such high expectations for this one: Paleo Bacon Brownies.

When my friend Mandy posted a picture of a batch of dark chocolate brownies, sprinkled with crisp bacon pieces, I just knew I wanted to sink my teeth into that sweet-savory dessert. When I got the recipe and saw that these were grain-free and were also fortified with coffee, I wasted no more time and made a date with my oven.

Like sea salt caramel before it, bacon has now taken over as the darling ingredient in popular cuisine. Just stop by any cupcake shop, modern bakery or dessert bar and you’ll see at least one dessert laden with the always popular cured meat. America’s obsession with sweet and salty in one bite must be responsible for this bacon dessert craze. It’s not limited to dessert, mind you. I’ve seen bacon beer, bacon vodka, bacon candy and for the purists who don’t care to muddle their bacon with other ingredients but just want more bacon, there’s the ever popular bacon weave.

I am not immune to the bacon craze. I was raised in the south and enjoyed bacon at the breakfast table with some regularity. My family, being from East Tennessee, taught me at a young age that the only way to enjoy canned green beans is to cook them down in a few tablespoons of bacon grease for hours until little to no nutritional value remained. I have dabbled in bacon-for-dessert myself. My grandmother has a killer recipe for something we lovingly call S.O.B. – Special Occasion Bacon, which consists of thick-sliced bacon dredged in equal parts brown sugar and freshly cracked pepper and baked in the oven until you are left with essentially bacon candy. A few years ago, I rang in the new year with some friends, a glass of Champaign and a loaf of homemade bacon monkey bread. What better way to start a new year?

So, this recipe was a little disappointing but perhaps it’s because I have high bacony expectations? I should also confess that my all time favorite dessert would be the humble homemade brownie. I have very strong feelings about brownies. My bacon and brownie bias likely was a difficult hurdle to overcome.

Despite this recipe not ranking as highly as I would have liked, I think lots of other people would probably really like this dessert. It does have a lot to offer. To start, the texture is aces. It’s really a very fudgy brownie which is exactly the kind of brownie I like best. It’s also grain-free/Paleo, only sweetened with maple syrup and is highly caffeinated for those of you who enjoy a little pick me up with your dessert. This recipe is from Everyday Paleo which is a great cookbook for people looking for quick Paleo recipes that the whole family can enjoy. Here’s the recipe I used:

 8 ounces dark chocolate

1/2 cup reserved bacon fat

1/2 cup coconut oil or butter

6 eggs

4 tablespoons strong brewed coffee

4 tablespoons fine coffee grounds

1 cup Grade B maple syrup

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

6-7 pieces of baked bacon

So, if you want to give it a try, even given my less-than-stellar personal review, here’s how it’s done.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the chocolate, bacon fat and the oil or butter. Make sure to stir often to prevent burning. This can also be done over a double boiler. Once melted, set aside to cool.

Mix the eggs and maple syrup together until well blended. Next, you can mix in the cooled chocolate mixture.

Make sure you start out with a large bowl! I had to transfer the mixture to a larger bowl at this point. This is when it pays to really read the instructions properly before starting to cook. Whoops!

Next, you can sift in the cocoa powder slowly and whisk into wet ingredients. Once cocoa is well blended, you can mix in the brewed coffee and coffee grounds.

Pour batter into an oiled 13×9 pan. Chop up your bacon slices and sprinkle on top. Bake for about 30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Remove from the oven, cool and slice up!

There you have it, Paleo Bacon Brownies. Maybe it’s harsh of me to say these aren’t delicious. They’re not my favorite but hey, they might just be your cup or tea… or piece of brownie for that matter. Truman Capote had great quote about failure that seems apropos:

“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”                                  

Hey, I have 87 more recipes to go and I can’t let this one get me down. When it comes to bacon, I’d just assume enjoy it fresh out of the oven, or wrapped around a meatloaf. And when it comes to brownies, there’s nothing that can top my grandma’s extra dark chocolate variety… except maybe this gluten-free recipe from Elana’s Pantry.

Coffee, chocolate and bacon – a culinary trifecta of vices. You may have let me down this time, but I will have my revenge.

Bacon-Wrapped Meatloaf: Meaty Decadence

Meatloaf. What can I say?

Covered in brown gravy, fried up for a sandwich, stuffed with hard boiled eggs or slathered in ketchup, there are countless ways to doctor up what is essentially a pile… er loaf… of ground meat.

Like Tuna Noodle Casserole and the meat-filled aspic dishes of yesteryear, the humble meatloaf seems to have fallen out of favor in the modern American kitchen. Until this year, I had never attempted a meatloaf or even had much interest in doing so. But since acquiring a deep freezer and sourcing a large abundance of grass-fed beef, much of which is ground, I have been looking for creative ways to use it up. Since I’m not up for grilling burgers every night, a meatloaf seemed like a good option.

As there are so many recipes for meatloaf and surely thousands of really bad ones, I decided that my best bet for a simple meatloaf was to reference a recipe from my Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook. I was gifted this awesome cookbook, along with a couple pairs of socks (???) by my great friends Brent and Beth. This hefty cookbook boasts 2,000 recipes from 20 years of their magazine publication. If you aren’t familiar with Cook’s Illustrated, you should definitely track down a magazine, cookbook or tune into their PBS program, America’s Test Kitchen. 

What’s so great about this franchise is that they test the hell out of every recipe, cooking technique and piece of kitchen equipment to determine the absolute best approach, recipe or product. Cook’s Illustrated, as the title suggests, does offer plenty of black and white illustrations which are particularly helpful for those of you who are engineer-minded and don’t understand the “add a pinch” or “season to taste” directives.

There were two meatloaf recipes to choose from, but only one promised to be wrapped up in a bacon blanket or as Dan called it, a meat coffin, so that’s the one we chose to make. The recipe we selected was Bacon-Wrapped Meatloaf with a Brown Sugar-Ketchup Glaze. True to form, I made some adjustments to the recipe. It did call for ground chuck, pork and veal but I just stuck with what I had in my fridge, organic grass-fed beef. Here’s the modified Recipe I used:

Brown Sugar-Ketchup Glaze 

1/2 cup ketchup

1/4 cup brown sugar

4 teaspoons cider vinegar

Meatloaf

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 whole milk (can substitute almond milk)

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons Dijon Mustard

2 teaspoons Worcestershire

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon hot sauce (or more)

2 lbs ground beef

1 1/2 cups fresh bread crumbs (2 slices sprouted wheat bread)

1/2 cup minced fresh parsley

8-12 slices bacon

I wouldn’t say this is a weeknight meatloaf. It does take a little prep time and, in my opinion, quite a few ingredients. But, this is a SERIOUSLY delicious meatloaf. You could totally slice up this unassuming meatloaf and serve it at a dinner party. It’s that good. Plus, this recipe serves six to eight people, or a couple for several nights of leftovers, so it’s worth the effort.

This was a great recipe choice since we cook with grass-fed beef, which is notoriously lacking in the fat content found in conventionally raised beef. Wrapping the meatloaf in a layer of fatty bacon helped to impart great flavor and also really kept the meatloaf moist. I am also partial to the ketchup glaze in this recipe since I was raised on ketchup encrusted meatloaf.

First step, get all of those ingredients out on the counter! If you are making fresh breadcrumbs, I’d tackle that task. I just took two slices of sprouted wheat bread and popped them into my food processor with the s-blade on. Pulse the processor until you no longer have large pieces of bread. You can also just use pre-made bread crumbs or almond flour if you want to go gluten-free.

Next you can make the glaze. Just add the three ingredients to a small bowl, mix and set aside. You can also mix this directly into a small saucepan since you’ll need to heat up the remaining glaze to serve on the side once the meatloaf is cooked.

Dice the onion and mince the garlic. Add to a skillet with olive oil. Cook over medium heat until softened, about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Mix spices and liquid ingredients together in a medium bowl. Add this to the ground beef, along with the bread crumbs, onions, garlic and fresh parsley.

With a fork, thoroughly combine all ingredients. Transfer to a 13 by 9-inch backing pan. With wet hands, pat mixture into a loaf shape, approximately 9 by 5-inches in size. Once you have formed the loaf, brush with half of the ketchup glaze.

Arrange bacon slices over the loaf, overlapping slightly. Tuck bacon tips securely under the loaf.

Put the meatloaf into preheated oven on the middle rack. Bake for about 1 hour, or until bacon is crisp and loaf registers 160 degrees. While your meatloaf is baking, simmer remaining glaze over medium heat until thickened. This can be served on the side if desired.

Remove meatloaf and cool at least 20 minutes. Slice ‘er up and serve with extra glaze and something green and healthy!

And that’s how you make a meatloaf! 

For this recipe, I would really suggest getting the best bacon you can find. I really like Niman Ranch brand when I’m out of my locally sourced bacon. No matter what brand you choose, make sure you have thick-cut so the bacon and loaf will be done at the same time.

Once the meatloaf is done cooking, you’ll find that it’s swimming in a pool of glaze, beef juice and pork fat. For the love of God, don’t throw that out! Scoop a little out to enjoy with your meatloaf or mix with the remaining thickened glaze to form the best sauce you’ve ever had.

If you want to Paleo-hack this recipe, or come close to it, I would use coconut sugar or maple syrup instead of the brown sugar. I would also switch out ketchup for some simple tomato puree. Replace the bread crumbs with almond or de-fatted coconut flour and use some almond milk instead of cow’s milk. There’s an insignificant amount of sugar in the Worcestershire, in my opinion, so I wouldn’t worry about that.

I enjoyed this meatloaf with another new recipe, also from Cook’s Illustrated, Roasted Broccoli with Garlic and Anchovies. (Up next!) Any green veggie or hearty salad would be a great accompaniment, but the meatloaf will definitely steal the show.

I’m so glad I tried this recipe out and I hope this inspires a few other folks to give meatloaf the respect it deserves. The recipe proves once again that EVERYTHING is made better with bacon. Everything.