The world is full of jerks, it's an unfortunate truth.
Case in point, one of Ottawa's cornerstones of interesting music, Lefty McRighty, is being sued by a certain music promoter for some stuff he wrote that may or may not be absolutely bang-on. I'll let the media handle the details. Point is that sometimes good people get caught in the flotsam of not-so-good events and they need a little help from their friends. So, in order to help Lefty out with possible legal fees, there's a fundraising event taking place April 3 at the Rainbow Bistro in Ottawa. Part of the fun will be a bake sale, and yours truly decided to try his hand at creating something delicious to help out.
So, I decided to make Bacon n' Bourbon Shortbread, which is essentially a compilation of some of favourite foods in cookie form. First off, I made this shortbread recipe from AllRecipes.com:
Shortbread
- makes about 2 dozen cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1/4 cup corn starch
- 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar (icing sugar)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (the original recipe says 375, but it lies).
- Using an electric mixer, whip butter till fluffy. I let it run on medium speed until the butter took a whipped cream texture. This takes about 10 minutes, but you may have to stop to take a spatula to scrape the butter back into the centre of the mixing bowl.
- Add the dry ingredients and beat into butter with mixer for 1 minute at low speed, then on high speed for 3-4 minutes.
- Drop about 1 tbsp of cookie dough per cookie onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, and say cookie one more time, for fun.
- Bake for 10-11 minutes (again, the original recipe lies), until edges are golden.
- Remove from oven and gently(!!) move each cookie onto a wire rack to cool.
 |
| Step 1 - COOKIES!! |
The next step in this trip down bake sale lane is to put something amazing on top. And when I think amazing, I think BACON! So, using this time-tested method, I developed a tasty cure for a whack of pork belly:
Free Lefty Bacon Cure
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup kosher salt
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp ground chipotle pepper
- 1 tsp ground guajillo pepper
Directions
- Smear the sure all over the pork belly and cure it for a week.
- Rinse cure and smoke over maple charcoal and apple wood chips for 4 hours at 225-250 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Fry up finished bacon and slice up into bits that can top a cookie.
 |
| Step 2 - BAYKUNNN!!!! |
Next up, we needed to find something to affix the bacon to the cookie, and I got the eureka moment to use my recent crazy invention of Bourbon Caramel to do the job!
 |
| Step 3 - Currrrrrrmelllll |
Once the caramel was cool, I drizzled it on each cookie and then topped each one with a pinch of bacon and drizzled a little bit more caramel on top. After the whole thing settled into place, I sent it off with my friend. But that's ok! If you show up at the Rainbow tomorrow, you'll be able to sample some of this goodness:
 |
| Tasty treats! |
Also, on top of that, kickass bands and hot burlesque ladies! What's not to enjoy!
So with that in mind, here's hoping I get at least one ass through the door with this post.
Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment