Aah, autumn in Vermont. What could be better than the colours of fall, foliage, crisp weather and the savoury aroma of a bon fire. Add in the quaint villages, piles of pumpkins and romantic covered bridges and you’ll wonder why you haven’t been here before. And to make it even more enticing, add pure Vermont maple syrup.
Vermont maple syrup (From here on referred to as simply syrup) must be the most versatile foodstuff on the planet. A leisurely walk through the Stowe Farmer‘s Market attests to that. These are a few things we saw at the market: vodka made with syrup ( no need for Russian collusion) hot sauce with a syrup zing, bbq sauce and some excellent ribs on the grill, ice cream, candied nuts and popcorn, syrup infused pot sticklers😳 and my personal favourite, the Syrup Cleanse...that’s a nope from me!
There are thousands of syrup recipes and I started to choose from those but then I thought, S3, now known as Marcia since S4 outed us, was on a primal quest for bacon. Her needs were not met. This is for her (on left, probably screaming for bacon).....
MAPLE BACON
I first had candied bacon at a picnic and of course, fell I love. Who wouldn’t ? The creator of this delicacy would not share all of the ingredients, imagine, so I began my foray into the world of pork and sugar. It took about 6 pounds of bacon to get it right the first time and 2 pounds for this blog. And, I’m going to share ALL the ingredients I used and give an extra at the end.
Needs
large cookie sheet, with sides, lined with tinfoil
cooling rack that fits inside the pan
tongs and bbq brush
Ingredients
1 pound thick sliced bacon US, rashers UK
1/3 cup or 80ml pure maple syrup ( sorry Aunt Jemima)
1/3 cup or 80 ml rice wine vinegar ( any vinegar will do but play with amount to taste)
3/4 cup or 180 ml brown sugar
Mix all ingredients together to form a slightly runny, grainy paste.
preheat oven to 350* or180* celcius
Place cooling rack in the pan. Do NOT forget to line with tinfoil or you’ll have a giant mess. I did! Lay out the bacon on the cooling rack and coat the bacon with the sugars. Bake five minutes, remove from oven and coat again.
Return to oven for 15 additional minutes.
Remove again from the oven, turn the bacon and give a good coat of sugars. Bake 15 minutes this side then flip one more time for another 15 minutes. Remove bacon from the rack and cool on parchment paper. Do not cool on rack, it will stick. The bacon should look like jerky but be easy on the teeth, chewy.
My extra....substitute rice vinegar for balsamic and Amaretto for the maple syrup. Omg...so good but really sweet, like cavity inducing sweet.
Enjoy
