It’s funny that in the 3 years we’ve hosted this party, we’ve never tested any recipes prior to the day of the party. Thankfully this year, we decided it might be best to test a few things out. I am so glad we did because we definitely had a few failures before our successes. Luckily, they were all really successful in the end.
Today, I’m brining out our recipe for the favors from our party, The Bacon Lollipop. It took two tries but in the end they were maple-y and delicious.
I figured I’d let you in on our failure before our success. The failure unfortunately was mine. I was hellbent on using the leftover maple syrup that we STILL had from last years party and ended up finding a recipe using nothing but maple syrup and bacon! I’m not going to say anything tasted bad. It was definitely maple-y AND bacon-y. The problem? Well basically, they could’ve ripped a filling out. They were very hard to chew, incredibly sticky (so sticky that I couldn’t remove them from the wax paper they cooled on), and ultimately, a fail. I had to admit defeat. At least we wasted a ton of maple syrup giving them a try!
We decided, well, Zack decided while I pouted, that some kind of rock candy recipe would be better. And boy was it! It yielded about 25 lollipops. We also tried making them using a mini muffin tin, but then it would probably only yield about 12 since they’re more blowpop size than the smaller pops that we made.
Here’s the final product and the recipe.
Ingredients
Confectioners sugar (it’s just for dusting so maybe like, a half cup or less?)
2 cups of sugar
¾ cup of light corn syrup
½ cup water
Roughly 1 cup of bacon bits (use real bacon bits, not bacos fake bits).
A note about the bacon – We actually cooked a lb of maple bacon and chopped it up so that we had some bacon grease to add – we only added about 2 tablespoons of the bacon grease. Maybe less. Just to add a little flavor. You don’t need the full lb of bacon though. I think about 6-7 slices will give you enough chopped bacon. You can eat the rest while you’re waiting.
Things you’ll need to make these
Popsicle/Lollipop sticks
Aluminum foil or a mini muffin tin.
A 2 quart saucepan
A
Candy thermometer
Directions
- Roll out two rectangular shaped lines of aluminum foil, about 16” long and fold up the edges. Sprinkle the foil very generously with confectioners’ sugar. The other option is to use a mini muffin tin and sprinkle that generously with confectioners sugar. It works just as well, you just get fewer (but bigger) lollipops.
- In a saucepan, combine the sugar, corn syrup, and water. Heat over medium-high heat, stirring constantly until sugar dissolves (takes a few minutes). Stop stirring, and boil until a candy thermometer reads 310 degrees F.
- Stir in the bacon and grease and then immediately remove from heat.
- Pour onto the prepared foil or muffin tin, and lay the lollipop sticks into the candy with a little swirl of the stick so that the candy is coated around the stick.
- Finally, allow to cool and harden (usually about 10 minutes for the flat pops, and 20-30 for the muffin tin pops).
*****If you’re pouring it into the aluminum foil, while the candy is still relatively hot (in the first minute or two) after pouring, use a large knife and cut up the lollipops. If you wait for it to cool, a lot might break in the process of cutting them apart.
baccalabloggala 