Traeger Wood Pellet Grill Reviews – Your New Barbecue’s Best Pal!

Traeger Wood Pellet Grill Reviews

You have been through a tough week and want to treat yourself to an epic barbecue? You have all the nicest, juiciest meat you could get your hands on at the market, and the freshest veggies crunchy enough you can hear it when you chew? That’s great to know!

But to bring out the best in them, you must have a wood pellet grill of equal quality. Well, our Traeger wood pellet grill reviews have just about what you need.

Why Should You Trust Traeger?

traeger wood fire grill reviews

Whenever the topic of famous wood pellet grills brands comes to start, Traeger would always be among those taking the lead. Almost each and every Traeger BBQ grilling appliance available on the market are hitherto the go-to products for an indelible barbecue party, the very part that turns every eat-and-meet occasion into perfection.

Have you ever wondered how Traeger acquired its top-grade title? Well, this brand promises to bring products diverse in models yet never fail to meet the requirements for quality, which happens to be exactly what all grilled food junkies crave for. 

To give you a closer picture, all appliances coming into being in its factory are equipped with a Digital Thermostat to keep the temperature stable from the moment your food enters the grill to the moment it comes out.

Besides, all these Traeger cooking tools are produced from metal with exceptional durability. So, nothing would cause you any trouble even when you have just started grilling for the first time.

As Traeger is downright a legit brand, you must be thinking that it will slap a price that rarely anyone from any class aside from the highest can afford on its products, right? Well, another pleasant surprise! Traeger grills are among the most wallet-friendly appliances out there, so anyone would be able to enjoy the distinct flavor it brings!

Traeger Wood Pellet Grill Reviews – Impressive Features

How come Traeger is always associated with reputation and acknowledged by many cooks? Take a good look at this in-depth review and you will be enlightened.

Traeger TFB57GZE wood pellet grill

1. Taste

Taste is, without a single doubt, the factor that all pellet grill buyers put atop everything else when they search for one. And this is where Traeger grill wins many over, by making use of the hardwood pellets with 100% natural origin, it fills your meat and veggies with a flavor that spice or herb of all sorts can give.

Plus, it goes without saying that the taste of food cooked in a wood pellet grill overpass that from gas or charcoal in all ways possible.

2. Ease of use

Another outstanding trait of this item is that it is super easy to use. You have never worked with anything like this before? Well, don’t sweat it! When you are with this grill, experience never matters. Even the first-time users can serve a barbecue party that makes every mouth water just like a pro does!

To be specific, this unit is as simple as an oven and using it is just as straightforward as well. Just set the temperature to your desired level and then let the grill take the whole wheel.

3. Versatility 

You only need a separate grill? Well, this Traeger pellet grill and its 6-in-1 features can go beyond your wildest dream.

Grilling aside, this one-of-a-kind device can also perform all sorts of cooking techniques such as baking, smoking, braising, and roasting using one and just one grill. Do you want ribs and apple pie for your dinner? Throw both into this and you have a time-saving solution. Can you think of anything else better?

Things go further than just that, depending on your needs, you can choose the cooking modes just the way you prefer – slow, fast, high-heat, low-heat – this grill has them all!

4. Convenience

traeger wood pellet smoker reviews

If there is anything worth praising about Traeger, it would be its dedication. The brand cares about its users’ convenience more than anything, and this unit is a perfect example of that.

First, let’s talk about its all-thing-fit-in size. With a grilling space around 575 square inches, this item can handle up to 20 burgers, 4 or 5 chickens, or 5 ribs.  More than enough to stuff all your party guests’ stomachs!

Also, it brings to you the D2 direct drive train that kicks the heating and the starting speed one level higher to save your cooking time.

5. WiFIRE Technology

If we have to pick what makes Traeger wood pellet grill stand out from the sea of products surrounding it, the WiFIRE technology will take the crown. WiFire here stands for WiFi (quite a creative word place they have), which means you can now control your grill freely from anywhere in your place via the Traeger application. 

It means that you will now have the chance to run your entire cooking process without even being in the same room with your grill. Case in point, you can set the timers, move the temperature one notch up or down, or supervise the levels of the pellet from a distance.

And what takes the cake is that this Traeger device can detect when your food is just second away from being overcooked and instantly notify you.

Wrapping It Up 

Traeger is the grill manufacturer born to boost your BBQ party to a whole new level. Just let it take on the role of your chef, and your taste buds are going to be in for a pleasant surprise – this we are sure of!

Anyway, we really hope that this Traeger wood pellet grill reviews of us have shown you why getting this Traeger device is a must!

So, why don’t you head out to the store for it right now and make it a part of your kitchen? Your stomach is going to thank you for that!

How Does An Electric Smoker Work – The Secret Behind

How Does An Electric Smoker Work

Tired of controlling an electric smoker to get your food well-cooked, then why don’t you have a look at how it works?

Discovering the mechanism of an electric smoker will come in handy, believe us! 

You will be able to find out more about its function, which allows you to solve some minor problems during its operation. Moreover, you can apply your findings into practice, which is even better!

Does it sound interesting to you? If so, let’s check out this article and find the answer to the question “how does an electric smoker work?

How Does an Electric Smoker Work?

An Electric Smoker

1. Start Button

Every electric smoker model has a start button to switch on or off. The best thing about electric models is that they are all fitted with a digital control panel, which makes them profoundly simple to use.

Temperature levels are the most critical thing. You can set the ideal temperature based on what you smoke. Set the panel to control the temperature. The temperature monitor should ensure that you neither overcook the meat nor undercook it.

2. Design

The more familiar you are with the configuration options and settings, the more effectively you can use your smoker.  The convenient design allows you to do more at the same time and hence, it is vital that all the settings are thoroughly understood. 

To change the smoker to a specific form of application, using the setup modes. If a particular type of meat needs a certain temperature for a given period, set your ideal configuration.

3. Electricity

how does an electric pellet smoker work

Some professional grillers argue that wood smokers are the best to smoke meat. This could be right, but using an electrical model will benefit you in a way that you don’t need to add wood chips every time. 

The griller automatically adjusts the temperature of the device. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about grilling with the preset temperature rating. Everything is electrical and you only have to set the configuration to enjoy.

4. Space For Meat

Specific types of meat need different space, and this is where the design comes into play. This implies that a smoker adjusts the sizes to suit the meat type. 

This feature will also allow you to smoke different types of food because the electrical smokers’ sizes are often very large.

5. The Settings

Choose the appropriate settings which you can easily adjust according to your needs, based on what kind of texture and taste you are after. 

It enables the perfect feel and flavor to be obtained by growing the smoke level. The more you know how these factors work, the better your results are.

Everything revolves around your taste and preferences, and these adjustment options that come with an electric smoker will allow you to get your meat done in the way you like it.

For some extra flavors, it is possible to buy an electric smoker with a wood chip tray. 

However, you do need to change the temperature and smoking time in order to modify the wood chips. 

Useful Tips For Using An Electric Smoker

how does an electric meat smoker work

1. Season Your Grill To Eliminate Debris

You should season your grill before using an electric smoker. The aim is to eliminate any debris that might have accumulated during the production.

To do this, simply cover the interior surfaces of your electric smoker with a light coat of cooking oil, and then run the device at approximately 275°F for three hours. 

Apply some wood chips to the chip tray for the final hour of seasoning. This creates smoke that would eliminate debris to make the system safer for repeated use.

2. Use Your Own Temperature Probe

Most electric smokers have an embedded thermostat. But, this may be a low-quality section of the whole system. 

3. Keep Your Smoker Clean

Electric smokers tend to burn cleanly. Do not ruin this feature by leaving charred food waste in your grill. You have to clean your cooking surfaces during each cooking session, from cast iron panes to kitchen grates.

Using a drip pan to keep your smoker clean throughout your cooking session. Just make sure to clean the drip tray whenever you finish with the rest of the unit.

Final Thoughts

You are still wondering” How does an electric smoker work?”.Well, we are confident that we have answered this query in detail.

Hopefully, in this article today, we have given you some basic information about the mechanism of an electric smoker and useful tips for users.

As you can see, the mechanism is not as complex as you have thought, once you have read our article. Read again, if you’re not sure about how it works and try your best!

Bacon and Eggs Ice Cream Recipe – Seriously

  • Difficulty:
    Medium
  • Preparation Time:
    30 Minutes

Now, just hold on a second. Before you turn your nose up at me, let me explain myself here.

Again, yes, I know I’ve gone a little crazy. This goes without saying. But have you ever had REAL French Vanilla Ice Cream? Did you lick the bowl? I thought so. Guess what’s in there… Yep, Eggs.

French Vanilla Ice Cream is given its name because it’s made from a custard base called Crème Anglaise – Kind of the same thing we used for our Crème Brulée. So I figured, if there are eggs in that stuff, it will probably go with bacon. Was I right? Absolutely.

We’re adding caramelized bacon again in this dish. Every time I use this stuff, the final product is stupidly delicious. I seriously think I literally get a bit dumber when I eat caramelized bacon because it’s so damn good and it’s all I can think about for about a week and a half.

But, back to the ice cream. If you have an ice cream maker, do yourself and everyone you love a favour and make this stuff. I’m not kidding when I say it will change your life. Just as crafting the perfect ice cream requires patience and the right ingredients, so does creating a stellar academic paper. For those moments when you’re juggling too many tasks, considering the option to hausarbeit schreiben lassen can be a lifesaver, offering you professional assistance in academic writing. This way, you can ensure your academic work is of the highest quality without missing out on making homemade ice cream for your loved ones.

Ingredients

10 strips Maple Leaf Bacon

¼ cup Brown Sugar (plus lots more for coating the bacon)

½ cup White sugar

8 Egg Yolks

2 cups Heavy Cream

2 cups Milk

1 Vanilla Bean

Pinch of salt

Directions

1. Prep your caramelized bacon. For instructions, see our Bacon Cookie Recipe. Hmmm… this gives me an idea. Stay tuned for more with the Bacon Cookies.

2. In a sauce pan, dump in your heavy cream and your milk. Slice your vanilla bean down the middle and scrape out the seeds into the cream and milk with your knife. Go ahead and throw the whole pod in there, as well. Everything has flavour! I used 1% milk because, well, that’s what I had in the fridge. Whole milk would probably give you the richest overall flavour at the end, but 1% worked just fine for me. I’d stay away from skim here. I never said this recipe was for your Atkins diet….

3. Slowly let the cream and milk raise in temperature until its hot, but not simmering or boiling. If it starts to bubble, take it off the heat. It’s ready.

4. While the cream and milk is warming, whisk together your 8 egg yolks with both kinds of sugar and a pinch of salt. Yes, salt. The salt will help to bring all the flavours together. Trust me, it won’t be salty but you need it! Don’t skip this step!

5. Continue to whisk your eggs, sugar and salt vigorously until everything is fully incorporated and completely smooth. The eggs should almost triple in volume and you should be able to make ribbons if you pull your whisk out of the mixture, like pictured. Now, you could do this with an electric or stand mixer, but I have neither and I did just fine. It’s always good when you get to feel when things are done!

6. Slowly, slowly, slowly add your hot cream to your eggs while you continue to whisk. We want to temper the eggs, not cook them into scrambled eggs. If you add the cream too quickly, the eggs will curdle and you’ll have to start all over. You literally can’t go too slow here, so just take your time.

7. Once the eggs and cream is fully combined, put it back into your pot and back on the stove. We’re going to slowly bring this back up to temperature and now cook the Crème Anglaise. You have to continually stir this, or else it will burn on the bottom. You’ll know your custard is done when it coats the back of a wooden spoon, or your quick-read thermometer reads 180°F. I highly recommend investing in one of these – it’s been a lifesaver on more than one occasion.

8. Pour your finished custard back into a bowl that’s sitting in an ice bath. We want to stop the cooking process and cool everything down before we put it in our ice cream maker. The colder it is going into the machine, the creamier the texture will be when it’s done. I could talk about the physical-chemical principles behind why this is true, but I’m not going to bore you with those details. E-mail me if you’d like to learn more!

9. Once cool, let your ice cream maker do its job. Add in your chopped caramelized bacon with about 5 minutes left and you’ve got yourself some Bacon and Eggs Ice Cream. Perfect for breakfast or desert… or lunch… or dinner… or brunch… or….

Roasted Garlic, Roasted Tomato BLT Soup Recipe

  • Difficulty:
    Medium
  • Preparation Time:
    Prep Time: 5 Minutes Cook Time 1:45hrs
Roasted Garlic, Roasted Tomato BLT Soup Recipe

Thanks to Andrew Back Bacon, I now know that April is BLT-Sandwich Month. Who knew?

I’ve already made a fantastic BLT sandwich for you guys, but I needed to do something different. Yes, I could have done a variation on the sandwich. Yes, I could have maybe changed the bread or some of the toppings. But I wanted to something completely different.

What if the sandwich wasn’t a sandwich at all?

What if the sandwich was something that went along with a sandwich?

What if the sandwich was a soup?

In this way, if you were at a restaurant with a soup and sandwich special, you could order the BLT with the BLT. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?

Did the boldness create any hype? Did it not make you want to know how to make a BLT Soup!!

Ingredients

3 lbs Roma Tomatoes

12 strips Maple Leaf Bacon

1 head Garlic

2 Shallots

1 Carrot

4 sprigs Fresh Tarragon

5 sprigs Fresh Thyme

1 small handful Flat-Leaf Parsley

2 cups Chicken Broth

¼ cup Heavy Cream

½ cup Crème fraiche

2 Jalapenos

Romaine Lettuce Hearts

Olive Oil, Salt and Pepper

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 375°F

2. Take your tomatoes (should be about 12 of them) and cut them into quarters and arrange them on a baking sheet that’s been lined with foil. Drizzle all of the tomatoes with a good amount of olive oil, then season them with salt and pepper.

3. Cut the very top off your head of garlic to expose some of the insides. Put your garlic in the middle of a 12”x12” square of foil and, again drizzle with olive oil. Bring up the sides of the foil to make a pouch.

4. Whack your tomatoes and garlic into the oven for 45 minutes to an hour. You’ll know it’s done when the tomatoes are dark and your whole house smells like heaven.

5. Cut up your twelve strips of bacon into nice big pieces and fry them until they are crispy in the bottom of a large soup pot or dutch oven. Remove them from the pot when they are done, but leave all the remaining fat in the pot.

6. Slice up your shallots and dice your carrots. Fry these along with your tarragon, parsley and thyme in the bacon fat until the carrots have gone soft. Just throw the whole sprigs into the pot, don’t worry about just getting the leaves. We are going to blend everything in a minute so it doesn’t matter. This should take roughly 3-5 minutes, depending on how big you cut your carrots.

NoteYou don’t have to use tarragon, parsley, and thyme! You could use oregano, basil, rosemary, chervil, sage…. Experiment! Be creative. The wonderful thing about tomatoes is that they accompany so many different herbs extremely well.

7. Squeeze out about half of your roasted garlic in with the carrots, shallots, and herbs and fry that all together for about 30 seconds, then dump in all of your tomatoes and about a cup of chicken broth. Stir everything up and mash up the tomatoes with your wooden spoon. Let this simmer for about 20 minutes.

8. Using a blender, puree the soup mixture. Just like when we made our Mole Poblano, let the mixture cool before you go crazy with the blender. It will make a mess! Take your time and be patient.

9. Before you return your blended soup back to the pot, pass it through a mesh strainer to remove any of the pulp. We want the final texture to be very smooth. Continue to let the soup slowly simmer.

10. Add in your cream, and adjust the thickness of the soup with the remainder of the chicken broth to your liking. If you like it a little thinner than I do, go ahead and use more chicken broth! Nobody’s gonna stop you.

11. I found a great little suggestion to freshen up the final product and give it a little kick- adding a garlicky, jalapeno crème fraiche swirl. To make this, all you have to do is blend a couple jalapenos with about ½ cup of crème fraiche and the rest of your roasted galrlic. Add this only as you’re serving!

Serving and plating:

I know what you’re thinking, what about the lettuce?! Well, I wanted to keep the crunch factor with the lettuce to add a contrasting texture, so cooking it wouldn’t do. What I decided to do is use the lettuce as a quasi-spoon.

So what you’re gonna do is serve your roasted tomato soup with your jalapeno crème fraiche swirl, then add your bacon croutons (that we’ve saved from the beginning) and a few leaves of lettuce.

So fancy, a prince would feel uncomfortable!

Bacon Cheeseburger Soup Recipe

  • Difficulty:
    Easy
  • Preparation Time:
    Prep Time: 2 minutes Cook Time: 40 minutes
Bacon Cheeseburger Soup Recipe

So here’s the story…

It has been cold and rainy for the last couple days here – real soup weather. I definitely needed something to warm me up. Unfortunately, I had no idea what kind of soup I wanted to make.

I was sitting at home watching the Food Network and “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” with Guy Fieri came on. He was visiting Grover’s Bar and Grill in East Amherst, NY. What’s so special about East Amherst, you ask? Well it’s one of the few places you can get Cheeseburger Soup. Yes, Cheeseburger Soup.

I know it sounds kind of weird, but I imagined it to be just a cheesy, hearty, cream-based soup. That can’t be bad! Now, Bacon Cheeseburgers are where it’s at, so why not turn THAT into a soup! Throw a few jalapenos and some cayenne pepper to kick things up a bit and you’ve got yourself something that’ll keep you warm for hours! If not  DAYS!

Ingredients

Bacon Cheeseburger Soup Recipe: Ingredients

10 strips Maple Leaf Reclosable Bacon

1lb Lean Ground Beef

1 Large Onion

1 cup Carrots

1 cup Celery

2 Jalapenos (more if you like it spicy)

½ tbsp Cayenne Pepper

1 L Beef Stock

1 ½ cups Half and Half Cream

4 tbsp All Purpose Flour

LOTS Old Cheddar

Salt and Pepper to taste

*Optional: Sour Cream

Directions

Bacon Cheeseburger Soup Recipe: Directions

1. Almost every soup begins with the aromatic Holy Grail: onions, celery and carrots. When these are cooked down, they take a kind back seat to enhance the rest of the flavours (whatever they may be) and allow them to be the star of the show. So we need to dice these things up first. Go ahead and cut up your jalapeno, as well.

Bacon Cheeseburger Soup Recipe: step 1

2. Cut your bacon into one inch pieces and fry them until crispy in the bottom of a large pot or Dutch oven. Once crispy, remove them from the pot with a slotted spoon.

Bacon Cheeseburger Soup Recipe: step 2

3. Into the remaining bacon fat, fry your jalapenos until soft, then toss in your ground beef. Break it up with a wooden spoon and keep stirring it. You’ll notice the ground beef will remove everything that was stuck to the bottom of the pan. This is a good thing; it’s soaked up all of that gorgeous bacon flavour.

Bacon Cheeseburger Soup Recipe: step 3

4. Once the ground beef has been browned, toss in your aromatic trio – the carrots, celery and onions. Let these sweat until they’ve softened up and the onions are completely translucent. Add your cayenne pepper and season with salt and pepper.

Bacon Cheeseburger Soup Recipe: step 4

5. Toss in all of your beef stock. If you think there is not enough liquid, you can always add some hot water. It should be sufficiently soupy. I know that’s vague, but how else do you describe it? Let this simmer for at least 20 minutes. The longer, the better.

6. When you feel all the flavours have melded together as they should, toss in your cream and stir. Next, in a separate container (preferably something with a tight fitting lid) put your flour and about twice as much water. Mix or shake this up vigorously to create an even mixture, then pour this into the soup to thicken it up. If you just put flour directly into the soup, the flour will clump up and the soup will not look very appetizing, with white flour chunks floating everywhere. I learned this the hard way a few years ago.

7. Bring everything back to a boil until the soup is sufficiently thickened. You can always add more cream if you like it creamier, more flour (pre-mixed in water, of course) if you like it thicker, or more water/beef stock if you like it thinner.

8. CHEESE! Shred it, and add it. All of it. I used that whole block pictured with the rest of the ingredients. There is never too much cheese in this recipe. I recommend taking it off the heat, and adding the cheese at the last moment. The soup should be sufficiently hot to melt the cheese readily, but not boiling. That leads to some wacky textures.

9. Plate it, top it with a dollop of sour cream. Don’t forget those bacon pieces that we saved right from the beginning ; throw those on top as well – way better than crackers!

Bacon Cheeseburger Soup Recipe: done

Caramel Brownie Chocolate Fudge Bacon Sundae Extravaganza

  • Difficulty:
    Easy
  • Preparation Time:
    No Cook Time!

What do you do when you have a whole bunch of leftover bacon products left in your fridge/freezer? You make a sundae, that’s what! I had some leftover bacon pieces from the BLT soup in my fridge, as well as the last of the Bacon and Eggs Ice Cream in my freezer.

I had also made some mini Bacon Brownie Cookies recently for my family. I had to clean up the scraps, so I put them all together with some chocolate and caramel and called it a day.

Now I need more bacon…

Ingredients

2 scoops Chef Rob Bacon’s Bacon and Eggs Ice Cream

¼ cup Fried Chopped Bacon

1 Ultimate Bacon Cookie

1 tbsp Caramel

2 tbsp Chocolate Fudge

2 cups Graham Cracker Crumbs

2 Cream Filled Rolled Wafers

1 stick Softened Butter

Directions

1. Grab a Martini Glass (or parfait glass if you have one).

2. Dump your graham cracker crumbs on a plate and spread it out nice and evenly

3. Take a martini glass, or parfait glass, and rim the edge with your softened butter stick. You just have to leave your butter on the counter for like 15-20 mins to get it perfectly soft.

4. Shove the rim of the glass into the graham crackers. We’re going to rim it just like we would for a ceaser or bloody mary. I could go for one of those with some Bakon Vodka right about now.

5. Grab your caramel and make a swirl on the inside of the martini glass. Get creative here!

6. Take your brownie cookie and break it up in the bottom of the glass. I recommend you pop the cookie in the microwave for 15-20 seconds before you do this to get it nice and warm and gooey and just mmmmmmmmmm…..

7. Top with 2 big scoops of your Bacon and Eggs Ice cream.

8. Dump your chocolate fudge on top of that

9. BACON CRUMBLES!!!

10. Finally, finish with a couple of your cream filled wafers. I love the way they look with ice cream. I love the way they taste even more.

11. Pretend you’re 4 again and get ice cream ALL over your face.

Bacon Caramel Donuts Recipe

  • Difficulty:
    Medium
  • Preparation Time:
    Prep Time: 30 Minutes Cook Time: 5 Minutes
Bacon Caramel Donuts Recipe

Let me paint you a picture about how these came to be.

It’s the first long weekend of the summer – the Victoria Day long weekend, or May 2-4 as we canucks call it. I’ve been out on a restaurant patio for a good 4 or 5 hours with a few of my best friends soaking up the sun and sipping back a couple beers – StoneHammer to be exact.

Needless to say, we had a “couple” pitchers and we were quite thoroughly enjoying ourselves. The waiter actually commented a couple times that he wanted to join us.

It then crossed my mind that I was about due to write another article for this, the Republic of Bacon, and I was drawing a complete blanks (hence why this was published late). Now I’m sure that about 50 ideas flew across the table, only a few of which I remember at this point, but it was my vegetarian friend who delivered the gold. Vegetarian, I kid you not. Bacon donuts with a caramel topping. We discussed methods, but this is what I came up with.

Yeah. Vegetarian

Ingredients

Bacon Caramel Donuts Recipe: Ingredients

6 strips Maple Leaf Bacon

2 cups All Purpose Flour

½ cup Mashed Potato

½ tsp Salt

¼ cup Sugar

1 cup Milk

5 tsp Yeast

2 tbsp Butter

½ cup Brown Sugar

½ cup Heavy Cream

Directions

Bacon Caramel Donuts Recipe: take our potato

1. First thing we have to do is take our potato, yes potato, and poke some holes in it with a fork. The starch in the potato will do wonders in the final product. Whack it in the microwave for about 5 minutes.

Bacon Caramel Donuts Recipe: step 2

2. Into some warm milk, measure out 5 tsp of yeast. If the milk is cold, the yeast will not ferment. If the milk is too hot, the yeast will die. Warm milk is key. Let that sit and do its thing for a bit.

Bacon Caramel Donuts Recipe: step 3

3. Take your potato out of the microwave and let it cool until you can handle it. Then give’er a peel and mash’er up with a fork.

Bacon Caramel Donuts Recipe: step 4

4. In a big bowl mix together your flour, salt, sugar and mashed potato, then add in your milk and yeast mixture. If you were paying attention, you would have seen the yeast form some bubbles in the milk!

5. Mix that all up together with your hands (or a mixer with dough hooks if you’re dainty) then knead it on a floured surface once it’s all encorporated.

Bacon Caramel Donuts Recipe: step 5

6. Let this rise for a little bit. What I actually did was turned on my oven for a couple minutes, then turned it off and THEN put the dough inside to create a nice warm environment for it to rise.

7. Flatten it out with a rolling pin until it’s about a half inch thick and cut rounds from it. You can put these rounds back into the warm oven as well to rise a bit.

Bacon Caramel Donuts Recipe: step 5

8. While you’re letting your dough do its thing, cut your bacon into tiny pieces and give them a good frying.

9. When it’s just crispy, add in your butter and brown sugar and stir it up until it all melts.

Bacon Caramel Donuts Recipe: step 9

10. Add in your heavy cream and continue to stir until it comes to a boil. Let it do that for about a minute or two, then take it off the heat and let it cool.

Bacon Caramel Donuts Recipe: step 10

11. Fry your donuts in vegetable oil until they are golden brown. If you have a candy or quick-read thermometer, the oil should be at 375°F.

12. Drizzle your caramel bacon topping all over those bad boys.

Bacon Caramel Donuts Recipe: step 12

Yeah. A vegetarian gave me this idea! Go figure.

Homemade Bacon Butter Recipe

  • Difficulty:
    Easy
  • Preparation Time:
    Prep Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 5 min
Homemade Bacon Butter Recipe

Don’t be scared. I know this sounds overwhelming. It may seem overwhelming for multiple reasons. Making your own butter? Sounds ridiculous. Bacon in your butter? Sounds fantastically mind blowing that you probably can’t handle its awesomeness.

Don’t fret, young Republic of Baconites, this needs to be in everyone’s household. All you need is an electric mixer of some sort – a hand blender, a food processor or a stand mixer. Each work equally well. Heck, you could even do it by hand by shaking a jar. You’d get one hell of a workout, too!

But, seriously, this NEEDS to be in your house right now. Imagine spreading butter with a hint of bacon smokiness over your morning toast, or pancakes, or waffles or at dinner with your bread or on your sandwich or in any dish that you need butter in.

And if you’ve never tasted homemade butter by itself, this will be a truly magnificent treat – homemade butter has such subtlety that you can’t get in store-bought stuff. This is true household staple and only requires two ingredients!

Ingredients

4 strips Maple Leaf Bacon

2-3 cups Heavy Cream (Depending on how much butter you want to make)

Ice water, for rinsing

Directions

1. Grab your bacon strips and pulse them in your food processor to get nice tiny pieces…

2. … And fry those little guys until they’re crispy. DON’T DISCARD THE RENDERED FAT. WE WANT THAT!

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer (or regular bowl if you’re using a hand blender, or in your food processor) dump in all your cream.

4. Beat that stuff on high while slowly drizzling in your bacon and rendered fat for the first 25 seconds. Continue to beat your cream (with the whisk attachment) for somewhere in the range of 3-6 minutes until the milk separates from the fat.

This will go through a few stages: whipped cream, then stiff whipped cream, then somewhat of a scrambled egg texture, then all of a sudden the fat will separate. You’ll know its time when your stand mixer starts making a huge mess – I kept a towel over the opening of the stand mixer to prevent my counter being covered in buttermilk. Also, I switched to the paddle attachment at the end just to coax out the last bit of buttermilk.

5. Pour off the buttermilk from the fat. You can discard this if you want, but I highly recommend saving it and putting it in tomorrow’s pancakes or waffles. This will be the most delicious buttermilk you’ll ever have.

6. Add in about a quarter cup of ice-cold water (the colder the better) to the butter. Mix the butter around in the water with a fork or a spatula for a minute (I used both) to rinse the butter of any remaining buttermilk. Discard the water and repeat the process.

7. Continue to rinse with cold water until the water no longer turns cloudy. By taking out all the buttermilk from the butter, it removes the slight sour taste from the butter, and makes the butter last longer in the fridge.

8. Pack your butter into your favourite container and eat it on anything you could imagine.

The Best Bacon Soups the World Has Ever Seen

We may think that the time for soups is coming to a close for the year, but the thing about soups – the secret fact that no one seems to realize – is that they are awesome and should be eaten pretty much every week.

And it should also be pointed out that we haven’t had a very good spring and winter in some parts of the country. It never feels like it is getting warmer. So why not eat some bacony soup? Mama, tells you to!

Below, I’ve collected my favourite bacon soups from across the web, and I’m delivering them safe to the comfort of your computer screen.

The Best Bacon Soups The World Has Ever Seen

Top 7 Best Bacon Soups

Bean and Bacon Soup

The weather hasn’t been that great. Just the other day, my umbrella blew inside out in the middle of a gusty rain storm. I hate when that happens. That’s why we should probably curl up with some heartening-type dealios like this one: bacon and bean soup. I can almost feel a snugly sweater being wrapped around me as I think about eating this baby.

Beer, Cheese and Bacon Soup

Sometimes, I just have to say, Wha? Cause, like, dudes – this is bacon soup with beer. I kinda feel like this is one of those cases where we trick everyone into letting us eat something wholly redonkulously amazing simply because it is poured into a classy bowl and served as an “appetizer.” Guys! It’s basically beer and cheese and bacon whizzed in a blender. We really can’t be fooling anyone by calling it soup, can we?

Thick and Creamy Potato Bacon Soup

You know how I say that cheese and bacon belong together, or that bacon and chocolate are a perfect match, or that bacon and avocados are really, like, the best thing ever? Well, scratch all of that. Bacon and potatoes were always meant to be joined together in the bonds of creamy soup.

Pumpkin and Bacon Soup

A lot of the soups I’ve highlighted today are pretty heavy. You won’t mistake this one for water anytime soon, but its use of pumpkins gives it a bit of a less gooey consistency. Also, pumpkins – with bacon. I can’t wait for Halloween to come around, so that I can make some bacon soup from my leftover Jack-O-Lanterns.

Lentil, Kale and Bacon Soup

Continuing to lighten our soups a bit, this one is even more brothy, and less creamy. And it has the ever-wise addition of kale. I may not look it, but I am one of the world’s foremost authorities on kale. My first rule of kale: never eat it without including some bacon for seasoning. This is the secret of kale, and why it is not more popular. I plan to write a book about this very problem.

Zucchini and Bacon Soup

As the author of this recipe notes, “a very good place for bacon, possibly even the best, is in soup.” Very true! Have you ever noticed how bacon, added before you cook all of the vegetables, seems to take the soup to another level of deliciousness? It’s probably because the bacon has always meant to be there. In fact, even if you are soup isn’t about bacon, I recommend sneaking it in somehow, just for that “secret weapon” effect. Trust me, you’ll be thankful I told you this.

Bacon Cheeseburger Soup

It wouldn’t be a round-up of the Internet’s best bacon soup recipes if I didn’t include one of Rob’s. Like everything tasty and amazing, this recipe includes cheese. It also includes burger. This, I believe, is how you make gold out of silver and bronze and a whole slew of other metals that are kind of as good as gold, but not really.

Even More Great Bacon Soup Recipes

Cabbage Bacon Soup

Cabbage is not the most loved vegetable. I don’t think anyone’s gone out of their way to hug a cabbage. But this recipe might just get you there: Cabbage Bacon Soup. With frost nipping at our heels, it only makes sense that you’d want to eat something as tummy-filling as cabbage bacon soup. And for those recession-prone times, cabbage is a perfect choice: each serving of this soup will likely cost just over a dollar. That’s some bacony value for your money!

Cauliflower Bacon Soup

We’ll keep the economy soup flowing with this entry: Cauliflower Bacon Soup. A whole head of cauliflower will only set you back a buck or two, and with a head of cauliflower, you pretty much have half of this soup! (The other half is bacon.) I’m also a big fan of cauliflower, and think it is wildly underrated. Trust me – this soup will make you a cauli-convert as well.

Pumpkin Soup with Bacon

This is the time of pumpkins, so it does seem to make sense to turn them into delicious soup. This recipe just crumbles the bacon on-top, but you can also try out this one, which incorporates it into the main part of the soup. Either way, I think this is a great way to celebrate the time of Halloween and falling leaves by baconing-up some pumpkins.

Sweet Potato, Celeriac and Bacon Soup

It’s freezing out there! After so many months of not even really considering what the weather was like outside before I left my house, I’m finding it hard to remember to put on my sweater, jacket and – much as I hate to admit it – toque. But my secret weapon to staying warm is to fill up on soups like this one – a heating mixture of sweet potato and celeriac, giving it a sweet and fresh flavour that won’t weigh you down as it wards off the cold. And it comes with bacon? I believe this is what we are supposed to call bliss.

Hearty Lentil Soup with Smoky Bacon and Sweet Onions

Lentils are one of those things I always forget about: they make any food they touch taste hearty and filling, and they add a lot of nutrients. They also go great with savoury foods like bacon and onions. This recipe will probably not just fill you up on those winter nights, it will probably put you into a sweet food coma that you’ll probably have difficulty getting out of when you wake the next morning. Thus, I recommend eating it only the weekends, and only when you are not going to operate heavy machinery afterward.

Top 25 Amazing Bacon Dessert Recipes

We’ve been doing this so long that I feel like I’ve seen every possible bacon dessert out there. I’m sure I’m wrong though – every day I see something new about bacon that I couldn’t have possibly considered before. Because I’ve seen so many, I thought it would be helpful to give you a wrap-up of twenty-five of the best Bacon Desserts.

But hey! If you know of some more, comment below. This list is in no specific ranking order and yes I included our bacon dessert recipes. Why? Because Chef Rob is awesome and makes the best bacon recipes in the world. Chef Rob bribed me to say that, I’d say he is second best… Chef Massimo Capra is the best.

The full list appears after the break.

Top 25 Amazing Bacon Dessert Recipes

1. In one of our first posts, we told you about the delicious benefits of making bacon candy. This remains one of the best ways to incorporate bacon into desert.

2. Chocolate-covered bacon is the next step in dessertifying bacon.

3. If you make this one, you might spend the next few hours picking bacon toffee out of your teeth. That’s part of the fun, isn’t it?

4. Bacon Brownies. Before it gets eaten, bacon has a single last request: that it can be sprinkled into some brownie batter.

5. If you are a fan of bacon brownies, why not try adding some Bourbon? (Only recommended if you are over 18. Under 18, just add more bacon.)

6. This recipe wisely just sticks to the basics of good brownie construction: peanut butter, bacon and beer.

7. While we’re talking about peanut butter, there is nothing preventing you from putting bacon in your peanut brittle.

8. Our good friend Chef Rob kindly suggested this recipe for Caramel Bacon Donuts.

9. But it’s never a bad idea to give your donuts a little Canadian zing. Try making some maple bacon donuts. Or you could make some maple bacon donuts the next time you are at Tim Hortons.

10. Another Canadian treat, Nanaimo bars, can also handle a bit of bacon.

11. The cupcake craze has engulfed bacon, with tasty results. This recipe is for maple bacon cupcakes.

12. And this one is for chocolate bacon cupcakes.

13. This cake looks like bacon, but actually is just cake.

14. Our friends at Mr Baconpants give us this recipe for bacon cheesecake.

15. I wish I could eat this bacon bread pudding right now.

16. David Lebovitz has a very precise and informative recipe that describes how to make bacon ice cream.

17. Once again, Chef Rob gives us the gold with this delicious Caramel Brownie Chocolate Fudge Bacon Sundae Extravaganza.

18. One of the first bacon desserts to spread through the Internet was bacon ginger snaps.

19. Everyone knows that chocolate chip cookies and bacon go together like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. (Minus the many adopted children.)

20. Flag this recipe and save it for next Thanksgiving: Bacon Pumpkin Pie.

21. Our American friends will certainly appreciate the bacon apple pie.

22. Our Greek friends will probably prefer the bacon baklava.

23. The French will inevitably prefer bacon brioche.

24. The camping aficionados will love the bacon smore.

25. But I, on the other hand, am pretty much in love with these bacon cinnamon rolls.