Candy Dish Blog

My friend Leroy sent me a link to an NPR article about the role of bacon in desserts. We have all heard of Pig Candy, seen and maybe even tried chocolate-covered bacon, and maybe even made our own candied bacon in the secrecy of our homes, clandestinely, before revealing the truth and wonder to our friends.

Well, I haven’t. I am the office vegetarian, so I am the one who drools when my officemates like Tori and Susan nibble away at choco-cocoa-yummy piggy bits and extol the beauty and goodness of these pig-o-licious combination. I try to be holier-than-thou, morally superior and aloof, but it’s all a ruse. The flesh may be strong but the spirit is weak. I want to try it too. Underneath this strong, rugged exterior I am a sinner at heart.

So I cannot try these recipes myself, but the NPR article has some really good-looking recipes. Please, people, try some of these at home and let me know what I am missing.

Leroy indicated that perhaps there’s more to the story. Does the bacon addition hurt confectionery? The simple answer is no. It may hurt for one batch of cookies, where you use bacon instead of chocolate chips, but then when you cover bacon with chocolate, you have already made up the difference. And honestly, you will not substitute bacon for chocolate in many cases. It just won’t happen.

I think there’s enough room at the table for candy and bacon. It was a fad in the last couple years to pair bacon and sweet stuff, especially chocolate. The sweet-salty and sweet-savory combinations opened up a whole new world to the confectionery industry. Now you can get cocoa spice rubs for meats, chocolate-covered meat and salty chocolate caramels. A few years back, these were almost unheard of, being strictly gourmet items. Now they are available to the general public.

In the end, confectionery wins in the bacon dessert mix. Bacon is still a novelty, even a fad. However, we may see bacon stand the test of time and someday look back on the late 2000’s as a time of creative bacony genius. It all may peter out. On the other hand, it may become a classic.

Chocolate Bacon by chipandandy.

If you were up really early yesterday morning, you may have seen the CBS Sunday Morning feature on the Future of Candy, part of the Tomorrow Show series with Mo Rocca (who I love on NPR’s Wait, Wait – Don’t Tell Me).  In the event that you like to spend Sunday morning sleeping in, or getting ready for Sunday football, you can watch the segment on the CBS Web site.

Go ahead, watch it.  We’ll wait.

Regular readers of the Candy Dish blog have already heard most of what was discussed including the importance of flavors, the trend toward savory and the influence of global cultures on American candy. 

A student at Resident Course pours hot candy into moulds

NCA provided some of the background used to put together that story and if you watch the first half of the segment very carefully you’ll see a few shots from our Resident Course in Confectionery Technology, which we affectionately call Candy School.

That’s right.  I said Candy School.  Sorry, the course is not open the public … but if it were, would you sign up?  What would you contribute to the future of candy?