Bacon Crackers

Ah, if only I could stop after three!

This isn't so much a recipe as something you throw together and stick in the oven.  It's the easiest thing and when I bring these to gatherings, they're gone in a flash.  They're addictive. I'm warning you.

So here's what you'll need
1 lb. of bacon
1 box of Club crackers
dark brown sugar

In terms of equipment, you need to have a rack that you can put in your oven.  One that looks like this, with a grid. You can try it with a rack that just has rows, instead of a grid but I think your crackers may fall off.  Just a thought.



Here's what you do:

Get some bacon, whatever is cheap.  Seriously.  I don't recommend getting low sodium stuff though.  You want the salt.  It's going to contrast nicely with the sweet and be yummy.  Trust me.  Also, the thinner the bacon is cut, the easier it is to work with.  Cut that bacon in half.  I usually use scissors and just cut straight across the package.

Line a cookie sheet that has sides with aluminum foil.  You need a cookie sheet with sides because the fat will render out of the bacon.  Please don't start a fire in your oven because I will feel responsible.  Practice safe cooking!  Put the rack inside the cookie sheet.  Now you're ready to start construction.

Take a cracker and put a scant teaspoon of brown sugar on the cracker.  I use an actual teaspoon (the nifty iced tea spoons I got at IKEA) and kind of pat the sugar so it sticks together in a little lump.

Now take one of your half strips of bacon and wrap it around the cracker and sugar.  I like to stretch the bacon a little to get some more length out of it.  All on it's own, one half strip of bacon will wrap around the cracker once with a little overlap.  I like to get 1 and a half wraps out of it.  I find it contracts nicely while the treats bake, creating a neat little bow-tie look.

Anyway, my neuroses aside, you want to try to cover as much of the cracker as you can.  Depending on your bacon, sometimes you can completely cover the cracker, today, my bacon was shorter and cut thicker than I usually like, so this was the best that I could do.

Put your full tray of bacon-wrapped crackers in a 325 degree oven for about 40 minutes.  The timing varies based on the bacon and your particular oven.

When they're done the bacon should look brown and crispy.  The crackers will likely have warped in shape a little bit and taken on a transparent sheen.  There will probably be a good amount of rendered bacon fat and dripped sugar in the bottom of your pan.

You can wait until they're cool to eat them or serve them warm.  They're good either way.

You can also do these with Parmesan cheese instead of the brown sugar but my friends and family prefer the sugar.