Every year our local Women’s Resource Center hosts a fundraiser called Men Can Cook. The idea is simple, local men cook a signature dish for a 300 person event that raises money for the Center. The past few years so many of my gay male friends have participated that I have renamed the event Gays Can Cook. My friend Andrew has signed up again this year and I offered to help him come up with something to serve. We wanted something that was different, simple to make, fairly inexpensive and could be served easily. We thought candied bacon was a stellar idea. I’ve been falling in love with the idea of candied bacon after seeing it on various television shows. They all seem to be doing it a different way – so in honor of Gays Can Cook I embarked on a Candied Bacon test kitchen this past Sunday.

I tested two very simple recipes; Brown Sugar Bacon and Maple Dijon Bacon. I cooked them side by side on a wire rack inside a baking sheet at 350 degrees for about 30 to 40 minutes (for quicker cook time you can raise the heat to 400 degrees). For the Brown Sugar Bacon, I just loaded light brown sugar on top of the slices of bacon. I mixed equal parts of pure maple syrup and dijon mustard to make a glaze for the Maple Dijon Bacon.

The Winner: Brown Sugar Bacon!

While both recipes were extremely tasty, we felt that the candied crystallized-like texture of the Brown Sugar Bacon made a huge difference. The only drawback to candied bacon is the clean up. So, if you want to skip that process and support a good cause – tickets are for sale for the August 15th Gays Can Cook fundraiser on the Women’s Resource Center website.