As though bacon addicts need any more incredibly awesome bacon recipes? A wonderful sweet/salty finger-food appetizer or bar snack, you can jar this up for gifts, or selfishly keep it all to yourself.
I almost always use sugar free 'maple syrup' and brown Splenda or Stevia, so if you want to calculate a carb count, it's essentially just nuts and the sweetener. Using real maple syrup tastes only slightly more fabulous. If you intend to make this low sodium, use real maple syrup and low sodium bacon, cut the salt amount down and/or use Diamond Crystal kosher salt.
It's a quickie recipe. Use two dishes-- one medium bowl for the nut mixture, and a large shallow one..... like a pie plate or platter.for the bacon mixture. Preheat the oven to 350 for at least 15 minutes. Prepare a rimmed cookie sheet. Non-stick is best but even so, be sure to use parchment or foil or disposable baking sheets. Parchment is best - and if you use foil give it a light spray of Pam. There's bigtime stickiness ahead.
Nuts: In one bowl, place 2 c. pecan halves and 2c walnut halves, 1/2 c. light brown sugar, 4 TB maple syrup, 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice, 1 tsp Hungarian paprika, 1 tsp coarse salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper. mix well and set aside. Do not use chopped nuts! but slightly broken, almost-half pieces are OK to include.
Bacon: Into the other dish, cut 12 slices of center-cut bacon in 1" pieces across the strips. It's easiest to use scissors and cut several strips at once, while the bacon is still cold and stuck together, then separate the pieces once they're cut... space them out in the flat dish so when you add the other ingredients they'll easily coat the bacon. Then add a mixture of 1/2 c. brown sugar, 1 tsp Hungarian paprika, zest of 2 oranges or lemons, salt and pepper. Pat it on and then with a fork or fingers , stir/toss gently til all bacon pieces are pretty much coated. Then spread them on the prepared pan and bake until the bacon is almost done and all the sugar is bubbling, about 10 minutes.
Then add the nuts to the pan. Using a spatula, turn and mix, then spread out again and bake 15-25 minutes more, turning and spreading again halfway through. It's done when the mixture has obviously turned caramel-ly and sticky. The length of time will depend on how thinly or closely the mixture is spread on the pan. Be sure that there are no large gaps --- you want it to stick together. Just slide the foil or parchment sheets off the hot pan to cool.
When cooling, you may want to flip the pieces over a few times to let the undersides harden a bit before storing them away so they won't be sticky. Let sit on the counter until it's 'dry' enough to break or tear into clumps. This may take several hours.. Edited to add that it doesn't need to be refrigerated in the short term. If saving for days on end I do pop it in the fridge
Scarf some down while gooey and warm, or let it cool and break it apart. This recipe will make about 6-7 cups of sweet, spicy, salty, bacony, nutty goodness. No one will be the wiser if you claim that you only made a half recipe...just be sure you get all the sticky evidence off your fingers.
