Chocolate-Covered Turtles with Bacon

Chocolate-Covered Turtles with Bacon – Chocolate turtles made with pecans and a special ingredient. Bacon!

It’s back! After a few months off, I finally received another food challenge at work. No, not another bake-off challenge, but an ingredient challenge.

The partner at my job loves to make requests/challenges for Friday treat that I’m bringing in that week. Of course, I take each challenge like a champ. This week’s challenge was to make a dessert with bacon. I tried to pretend like it would be impossible for me to find a dessert with bacon and taste good (sometimes it’s better that I keep my public displays of cockiness (or PDC) to a minimum). But little did he know, bacon in desserts was a huge fad a couple years ago and still is today. So I knew I’d be able to rock this challenge without a problem (aaand the PDC returns).

After seeing a bunch of maple bacon cupcakes, maple bacon doughnuts, and even maple bacon cookies, I was a little concerned that I wouldn’t find anything unique enough. And you know me, I all about the edgy stuff.

But then, there it was…the bacon dessert recipe that blew my mind. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before, but yet, such a simple concept: Chocolate-Covered Turtles with Bacon.

First, I guess I should explain what a turtle is, in case you live in a cave. Ok, that was mean. I apologize. You’re may just be uneducated in the confections of the world. And I shouldn’t blame you for that.

So yeah, turtles…turtles are pecans covered in caramel and then coated with chocolate. Typically, one uses five pecans to resemble a turtle: four feet and a head (apparently, tails aren’t important). The caramel/chocolate coating represents the shell. And there you have it…a turtle!

Now, I’m  sure there’s a few of you out there that aren’t really feeling the chocolate + caramel + pecans + bacon idea, maybe even a little disgusted by it (shame on you, by the way). But let me tell you, all these flavors really work! The bacon is very subtle but present enough to make a difference. To test this, I didn’t tell my co-workers about the bacon, but rather suggested that a “surprise” was in the middle. I’d have them eat it and then guess as to what the surprise was (this was mostly to prevent any sort of skepticism that’s inherent when offering a dessert with bacon in it). They all thought it was pretty tasty but most had no idea what it could be. They were all so shocked to find out it was bacon. I fooled them! Bwahaha!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, my partner loved them. He had two before 9am. Needless to say, I’m going to get promoted real soon. Or a big fat raise. One of the two.

Recipe (courtesy of Serious Eats):

Fry bacon in large skillet until very crisp, about 8 minutes. Transfer bacon to paper towel-lined plate and let cool. When bacon is cool enough to handle, cut each strip into six pieces with kitchen shears. Set bacon pieces aside.

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Arrange pecans in star-shaped clusters of five. You should have enough whole pecan halves to make 30 clusters. (If you don’t, you can arrange broken pieces into little piles. They won’t look like turtles, but they will still be delicious.) Set baking sheets aside.

In small saucepan, combine heavy cream, butter, and vanilla extract. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then immediately remove from heat.

This recipe looks intense since it has a bunch of steps but, I promise, it’s not that bad. It took me about 1.5-2 hours from start to finish. Not bad, huh?