Ninkasi-Vanilla-Oatis-Edited2

The lovely people at Lost Abbey were sweet enough to send me some beer so I made candied bacon ice cream with it! I remember having this amazing candied bacon ice cream from Haven back in the day, so I did my best to pay homage to their tasty creation while putting my own spin on it.

Ingredients:

2 cups half & half

2 cups heavy whipping cream

2 cups granulated sugar

6 strips of bacon (or more if you desire)

Beer (I used Lost and Found by Lost Abbey)

Directions:

1. Make beer syrup by combining 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 cup beer and reducing it in a saucepan until it’s reduced by half or you can run your finger down the back of a spoon and the line stays. Set aside to cool.

2. In a bowl combine 1 tablespoon of beer syrup (or more if you want a darker sugar) with the 1 cup of granulated sugar to make a beer brown sugar.

3. Place bacon strips on a drying rack on a half sheet pan (the kind with the edges otherwise you’ll catch your oven on fire) lined with foil to catch the sugar and grease. Put a heaping amount of the sugar on top of the bacon and cook at 350 degrees F for at least 20 minutes. Check on it, and keep cooking until the bacon is fully cooked but not burned.

4. Set bacon aside to cool fully and allow the sugar on top to re-solidify. Once cooled completely, cut up into bite sized pieces and toss in either the leftover beer sugar or granulated sugar and place in the freezer.

5. Using your ice cream maker (I use a Cuisinart) place the half & half, heavy whipping cream, 1/2 cup of sugar, and 1 tablespoon of vanilla into the ice cream maker while it’s spinning. Once it starts to set-up (after 10-15 mins) add 1 tablespoon of beer syrup. Turn off the machine and fold in the candied bacon pieces and put in the freezer for a few hours to finish getting set-up.

This turned out pretty good for my first attempt at bacon ice cream! It was still a bit to savory so I think I would have made the bacon pieces a lot smaller if I were to make it again. Have you made bacon ice cream? Let me know how it turned out!

Ninkasi-Vanilla-Oatis-Edited