Last Updated on November 7, 2018
Desserts are so often sweet, sweet, and sweet. While delicious, they lack the complexity of other, complementary tastes, like salty, savory, and fatty flavors. Enter bacon: With its ability to add crispy, crunchy texture and salty, savory, even smoky flavor to anything it graces, it actually makes for an ideal dessert enhancer.
It doesn’t matter what kind of dessert you’re going for, bacon in desserts just makes so much sense. Chocolate cake? Chocolate bacon cake sounds even better. Brownies? Bacon will improve the situation. Bacon-apple tart? Yes, even in this instance, crunchy bacon turns a good dessert into an epic dessert.
This list even features simple, bacon-centric recipes like chocolate covered bacon and candied bacon. Thus, bacon on its own can be a decadent dessert — especially when enrobed in silky, maple-spiced dark chocolate, or rolled in coconut palm sugar.
Whether it’s unexpected flavors like bacon and buttermilk custard, or straightforward sweet and smoky candied bacon, these recipes will teach you how to best use bacon in your desserts.
Bacon Nutella Brownie Bites with Maple Cinnamon Glaze
Ever put bacon grease in your brownies? Trust us, bacon brownies are divine. These bacon Nutella brownie bites with maple cinnamon glaze are made with clean ingredients, but manage to come out ultra-indulgent and delicious. We dare you to eat just one bite.
With homemade Nutella (store-bought works too), coconut sugar, bacon grease, eggs, coconut flour, and bacon soda, you can whip up some incredibly moist and flavorful brownies. Be sure to top them off with a maple cinnamon glaze, made from coconut butter, coconut oil, maple syrup, and cinnamon. Finally, finish with a healthy dose of chopped bacon bits.
Apple Tart with Bacon Fig Syrup
This delicious recipe for apple tart with bacon fig syrup is crunchy, fruity and luxurious. It’s the kind of thing you’d find at a high-end brunch, minus the high-end price tag. With bacon, fig jam, and water, you can make an incredibly delicious syrup. The apple layer is simple, with just Granny Smith apples, cane sugar, and lemon juice. The crust combines almond flour, buckwheat flour, pure cane sugar, ghee, cinnamon, and salt to deliciously crunchy effect.
Definitely whip this up and invite a group of people over to help devour it.
Gluten-Free Buttermilk Bacon Pie
Ever had honey-lacquered bacon? How about honey-lacquered bacon strewn across a buttermilk custard pie? If not, it’s amazing and you need to try it.
Even the crust of this gluten-free buttermilk bacon pie features bacon, along with gluten-free baking flour, honey, butter, and cold sparkling water. The buttermilk custard features, of course, buttermilk, as well as eggs, heavy cream, vanilla, and honey. Finally, bacon is baked, then brushed with honey and broiled, the used to top off the amazing, custardy pie.
Chocolate-Dipped Candied Bacon
This chocolate-dipped candied bacon is the simplest of pleasures and ideal for bacon lovers.
It comes together quickly and is made with thin, crispy bacon, brown sugar substitute (or brown sugar if you’re not strictly Keto), cinnamon, super dark chocolate, cacao butter or coconut oil, and maple extract.
Simple brush the bacon with a cinnamon-sugar mixture, bake it at a relatively low 275°F for an hour, then dip it in a maple-flavored dark chocolate. It’s perfect on its own, and one of our favorite bacon desserts, but feel free to top pies and cakes with it, or serve it as part of a fancy dessert spread at an event.
Paleo Bacon Chocolate Cake
Cupcakes, round cakes, or sheet cakes? Whatever you bake, bacon will improve many of your favorite dessert recipes. This Paleo bacon chocolate cake incorporates bacon grease into the mix, making for moist, fudgy chocolate cake (or bacon cupcakes, if you want).
This recipe uses pre-made Paleo chocolate cake mix, but you can whip it up with cocoa powder, coconut flour, sea salt, and baking soda. Add to that coconut oil, water, eggs, and honey (and bacon grease!) and you’re in for a delicious chocolatey treat. Be sure to cook up extra bacon to top your chocolate cupcakes and to frost it with your favorite frosting.
Candied Bacon
Ready for the simplest of treats and one of the easiest bacon recipes that’s not over the top?
Candied bacon, a simple combination of crisp bacon and coconut palm sugar, hits the spot. Simply roll your bacon in coconut palm sugar and bake it on parchment paper for 25 to 30 minutes. This sweet and salty take on a breakfast classic will have your family coming back for more.
Maple Bacon Donuts
These maple bacon donuts are not only topped with smoky, salty, crispy bacon but filled with it, too. Each bite amounts to a crispy bacon explosion in your mouth.
The bacon flavor is complemented by a sweet cake donut, made from eggs, almond flour, coconut flour, baking soda, raw maple syrup, coconut oil, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt. The bacon donut is then topped with a maple glaze, made quickly in a blender with raw maple syrup, coconut butter, coconut milk, vanilla, cinnamon, honey, and palm shortening. The final touch is, of course, bacon. The treat is Paleo-friendly, dairy-free, gluten-free, and soy-free.
Essentially, these maple bacon donuts are pancakes, maple syrup, and bacon in donut form.
