Emma from Of Agates and Madeleines recently made a Blueberry crème brûlée.

I told her that while I normally don’t trust fruit in my desserts, I do trust her taste in food, and since I’ve never made a crème brûlée before, I thought I should try my hand at it.

She responded, “Get on the brûlée train Mary!”

Alright, fine.  I WILL.

That’s right: it’s Bacon Crème Brûlée!

This is probably the recipe that ended up tasting the best of the sweet recipes (and even best overall, I’d say).  Making a brûlée was as easy as Emma promised, and I’m really happy to have a new technique under my belt; I look forward to making it again (likely without bacon, but still).

When I first did some Googling for “bacon creme brulee” ideas, I wasn’t sure if this was the recipe I really wanted to use.  When I research recipes in anticipation of Bacon Week, I tend to think of recipes that merely sprinkle bacon on top of the food as “cheating”.  I’m looking for recipes that truly integrate bacon into the food; you can’t just crumple some bacon on top of whatever it is you’re making and prepend the word “Bacon” in the recipe.  We must have standards!

Still, I’m glad I made an exception for this one, as it is PHENOMENAL.

The base of the brûlée is a rich vanilla flavor, and if you want to try this recipe out and have access to vanilla beans (as opposed to just extract), I highly recommend you spend the money.  I halved the recipe (because I think that 6 ramekins of brûlée is more than enough to fatten me up for the kill) and made it several days ahead of the actual photo shoot so I could freshly “brûlée” the bacon and sugar on top.  But leaving 6 ramekins of brulee in my fridge just wasn’t going to do.  I had to try one ahead of time.  You know, for science.

My mind was truly, OFFICIALLY, blown.

It’s actually a miracle the additional 5 ramekins lasted for the next few days without me downing them all in one sitting (though the fact that I know what’s in them and exactly how terrible they are from a health-perspective was really helpful).  I couldn’t imagine what adding bacon and sugar to the top would do to the flavor, but at least I knew I’d made the crème part correctly.  Because it requires adding hot creme to eggs yolks, I was a little concerned I was going to screw up and get a very eggy-tasting crème, but with patience, I persevered.

The topping requires you to candy the bacon, which, for as good as it tastes, is super-easy to accomplish.  And I only had one small moment of panic thinking the burning sugar smoke emanating from my oven was going to set off my apartment’s sprinklers!  Huzzah!

Once you candy the bacon, you chop it up into small pieces and layer it on top of the crème, then add some additional brown sugar on top.  I whipped out a friend’s mini soldering jet-flame thing (thanks, Steven!) and melted the tops, with general success.

The result?  DELICIOUS!  I was really impressed with how well the intense bacon and vanilla flavors melded together, but in the end wasn’t too surprised (remember my bacon ice cream from last year?).  It was divine, however, and I devoured it.

So voila!  Recipe 2 for Bacon Week 2013.  I mentioned in earlier posts how these year has a vague “Game of Thrones” theme, and I consider today my Daenerys recipe, for obvious reasons.  I actually wanted to do a little more with making the photos Dany-like, but I worked with what I had on hand, and I don’t hate it. ^_^

To Bacon Week!

Bacon Crème Brûlée

Halved from Republic of Bacon