Bacon Caramel Popcorn

 

I still have bacon left over in the freezer from the Butchery and Charcuterie class that I took last November/December. 

My lovely aunt (the same one who organizes our yearly cookie exchange) sent me this recipe a couple of weeks ago as she knows I have a particular affinity for anything with bacon in it....

I love caramel popcorn.  (and I'm sure I am not the only person that finds it addictive.)

So - because of all of these things, I felt like the stars were aligning for me to make this recipe. 

Bacon Caramel Popcorn 
Adapted from Edible Canada.

(Approx. 10 servings)

Ingredients:

3/4 pound of bacon

1/3 cup of popcorn kernels

1 cup salted butter

2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup corn syrup

Pinch of sea salt

1 tsp baking soda

Directions

(1) Finely chop the bacon and fry until crispy; Once cooked, removed bacon pieces from pan with a slotted spoon (I put mine onto a plate lined with paper towel to suck up any excess grease)

-I fry the bacon in a deep pot; which can then be used to pop the popcorn - thereby reducing the amount of dishes that need to be washed...

Mmmmmm...Crispy bacon....

(2) Reserve about 4 tablespoons of the bacon fat (supplement with butter if required); Heat the bacon fat in a large pot with a cover. 

(3) Add a few popcorn kernels to the pot and cover - Listen for the kernels to pop; Once they have popped, add the rest of the popcorn kernels;  Cover and shake occasionally until the popping stops.
(4) Put the popped corn in a deep mixing bowl...

***make sure to remove the un-popped corn kernels (this is very important - otherwise you will have a big sticky mess in the oven if that's where the un-popped (caramel covered) kernels decide to pop)***

(5) Preheat oven to 225 degrees.

(6) In a large pot, heat the butter, brown sugar, corn syrup and salt over medium-high heat (stirring occasionally) until it reaches 275 degrees on your candy thermometer.

-be very careful when handling this mixture - hot caramel will burns your skin quickly....

(7) When your candy thermometer says 275 degrees, remove caramel from heat and stir in baking soda and bacon bits...

-the baking soda will cause the caramel to double in size

 

(8) Pour the caramel over the popcorn and mix until covered.

(9) Put the caramel covered popcorn in a baking tray lined with parchment paper.

·         Step 7, 8 & 9 - try to do this quickly (and carefully) - as the caramel cools, it will harden

(10) Place in oven for an hour; Using a silicon spatula, turn caramel covered popped corn every 20 minutes to redistribute the caramel and bacon bits.  

Mmmmm...Bacon Caramel Popcorn in the oven!

(11) Remove from oven, let cool a bit before tasting (hot sugar in mouth can only lead to disaster); Add more salt if necessary.

(12) Once it's completely cooled, break into bite size pieces.

Optional - once it's cool enough to handle, but not completely hard yet, you can roll chucks into balls for presentation purposes...

***If you don't want to put in bacon (it’s beyond my why you wouldn’t want to put the bacon in), you can supplement with some roasted peanuts (like the cracker jack popcorn) in step 7***

Happy Cooking!

Makin' Bacon.

The intention for this post was to talk about the next Culinary Arts course I took, Culinary Arts II... 

...I am going to go out of sequence here a little and talk about Bacon.  I love Bacon.  All types of Bacon.  It makes me happy. 

A couple of weeks ago I started the newly offered Butchery and Charcuterie class at GBC.  I really had no idea what to expect.  I enrolled in it because butchery seemed like a good skill to have.   To my delight, I discovered that on the first day of class, (bright and early on a Saturday morning) we were 'makin' bacon'!  I was like a kid on Christmas.  I had a big goofy smile on my face for the whole class.  

First, we were given a pork belly and the ingredients to make a rub for the pork belly in order to 'dry cure' it.  After rinsing, drying and scoring the skin side of the pork belly with a knife, we massaged it with the rub and left it to cure for the week in GBC's industrial-sized fridges. 

Pork Belly Rub for Dry Curing

(for 6KL pork belly)

216g kosher salt

108g brown sugar

21g INSTA CURE NO.1

(look at that colour!  Perfection...)

The next week....

We massaged it once again with maple syrup (Mmmmm....maple syrup).  And then smoked it in an oven (@350 degrees for about 3 hours, skin side up) with wood chips. 

(see that brown stuff in the pan?  I totally stuck my finger in it....It tasted like maple-fatty-goodness)

I felt pure joy through the whole process of bacon making.  I have a feeling its because I love bacon so much.  (and no, I do not have a problem...lol)

One of the best things I found with 'makin' bacon' is that the method demonstrated in class is completely replicable at home (and after tasting the end product, I would say that it's definitely worth doing).  We soaked and heated the wood chips (in a foil pan) on a stove top until they began to smoke, at which point we covered them with a foil cover.  We then poked holes in the foil cover so all that yummy smoke could infuse the pork belly in the oven. 

When I attempt this at home, I think I will be using a backyard bbq as I (unfortunately) do not have the industrial fans that the George Brown kitchens do to suck all the smoke that is emitted out before everything (jackets, furniture, carpets, clothes, hair etc.) smells like smoking wood (don't get me wrong, eau de 'camp fire' is great, but only to a certain extent).

So far, the Butchery and Charcuterie course is getting a big *thumbs up* from me...and there is still a whole class on sausage making to come!

Happy Cooking!