Milk Chocolate Bacon Bark

My hiatus was not entirely without culinary excitement.  Over the holidays, I had occasion to make candy.  This may seem boring, until I add that it also contained bacon, and in some cases, whiskey or beer. For a New Year’s Eve celebration, I made milk chocolate bacon bark, beer brittle, and a chocolate bacon bark layered with caramel and whiskey marshmallow filling.  Do I have your attention now?

Bark in general is very easy to make.  Deciding on a type of chocolate and a topping is usually the most difficult part.  I strongly advise that if your topping of choice is bacon, use good quality bacon.  Using inferior bacon (and believe me, it exists), truly results in an inferior product. I usually bake my bacon, but for this, frying it in a skillet until crispy is really the way to go.  Whatever you do, don’t use soggy bacon, or the texture will leave something to be desired. The mixture of sweet milk chocolate and crispy, salty bacon is really a beautiful thing.  I’m not going to pretend this is good for you, and consider yourself warned.

Milk Chocolate Bacon Bark

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. good milk chocolate (I use Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips)
• 12 oz. package good quality bacon

Directions:

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Fry bacon in a skillet until crispy and set aside to drain on paper towels. Once cooled, crumble into small pieces.

Melt chocolate in a double boiler (or microwave, but be careful not to scorch it).

Stir half of the crumbled bacon into the melted chocolate.

Spread the chocolate mixture onto prepared baking sheet.  It should ideally be about 3/8″ thick.

Sprinkle the remaining bacon over the chocolate mixture.

Refrigerate for at least 1 hour until chocolate is completely set, and break into pieces. Pieces can be as big or small as you like.

Serve at room temperature.