My Morning Chocolate

There was a time when bacon was one of my food groups, probably because of our visits to the Bob’s Big Boy’s breakfast buffet.  I ate enough bacon there to last for weeks. 

Then, my cousin, Michael, and I would load our plates with a big pile of twisted, crispy, oily bacon.  And I mean that bacon was the only food on our plate.   “Jen, you must have a pound of bacon on your plate!” my Mom would say.  But we didn’t go to BBB’s that often, so she let me eat it, sometimes even two plates full. 

As I got older and became more health-conscious (or, more accuately, started having those teenage worries about my weight), I switched to turkey bacon with its brown and tan stripes.  Turkey bacon was bigger, flatter, and crisper than pork bacon (in my memory at least), and I came to like it more.  I would microwave four or five slices and eat them alone, even the burnt ones, for breakfast.    

That was years ago though.  Until last week, I hadn’t had bacon in more than a decade.  Now, I remember why I loved it so much. 

Bacon Ice Cream 

The recipe I used from Baltimore magazine is actually for adobo-bacon ice cream (scroll down to see the recipe on the left side).  However, because I couldn’t find the adobe paste and because I had just made a spicy Mexican chocolate ice cream, I left that out.  

Like the Mexican chocolate ice cream, the bacon ice cream starts with a vanilla ice cream base.  Then, bacon fat and chopped bacon are added. I tasted vanilla sweetness first, and then, as the ice cream began to melt, the salty bacon pieces.  I liked it.  And my Mom, who has problems with food textures and would be the first person put off by bacon pieces in her ice cream, had this to say:  ”It’s actually not that bad.”     

However, if I make this recipe again – which I hope you’ll be able to see soon – I would do three things differently based on the equipment I have at home and my personal tastes:     

Use a different vanilla base.  Like the Mexican chocolate ice cream, the bacon ice cream also starts with a vanilla ice cream base.  This one was easier and faster to make than last week’s vanilla base:  just bring milk, sugar, and a vanilla bean to a boil, slowly whisk this mixture into egg yolks, and stir in heavy cream.  However, the texture of the finished product was more like a creamier cream ice than an ice cream.  This may be because the recipe says to spin the base in a Pacojet, a $3,450 ice cream machine that makes “ice cream and sorbet that are more velvety and ethereally light than any you’ve ever had in your life,” according to Chow.com.   Since I don’t own a Pacojet, I would probably use this vanilla ice cream base from David Lebovitz next time. 

Leave out the bacon fat.  After making the vanilla ice cream base, the recipe says to stir in 4 tablespoons of bacon fat.  I thought this would give the ice cream a bacon flavor, but honestly, I didn’t really taste it.  For me, the bacon flavor in the ice cream came from the chopped bacon.  However, this recipe is from a professional chef, so I wonder if my taste buds, having not had bacon for so long, are off.  Still, next time I would omit the bacon fat, if only to see if there is a difference in flavor.      

Add the chopped bacon during the last five minutes of the freezing cycle.  In addition to the bacon fat, you also stir chopped bacon into the vanilla ice cream base, and then refrigerate the mixture until cold.  (I would still do this so the bacon can infuse flavor in the ice cream.)  The recipe then has you pour the mixture into your ice cream maker to freeze it.   However, I would sift out the bacon pieces first.  My ice cream maker wouldn’t turn when the bacon was in the mixture at the beginning of the cycle.  Then you can re-add the bacon during the last five minutes of freezing time.     

As you vanilla ice cream base of choice refrigerates, you can cook 9 slices of bacon.  Here’s the Whole Foods brand I used.  It’s  a thicker cut than the bacon I remember and quite addictive.

After you cook the bacon (reserving the fat if you decide you want to use it in the ice cream base), chop it up, add it to the vanilla ice cream base, and refrigerate until cold.

When the ice cream mixture is cold, sift out the bacon.  Freeze the vanilla ice cream according to the manufacture’s directions, then add the bacon during the last 5 minutes of the cycle.

So many people say that bacon makes everything better.  So I’m curious:  what’s your favorite way to use bacon?