We in the South now! Jonathan and I have a deep love of, and passion for Southern food.. which is great with us being stationed just 3 hours from New Orleans, the veritable cultural epicenter of Cajun, Creole and Soul food.  

At any rate, we’re in Mardi Gras season, which means it’s time to indulge in all kinds of unique-to-the-South delicacies. And no Southern palate is complete without having tasted good old fashioned pralines! (For those of you who don’t know, pralines are flat cake-like candies with crumbly sugary caramel and pecans.)

The History of Pralines in America

According to the Southern Candy Makers website, on the history of pralines:

It is believed that pralines were brought over from France by the Ursuline nuns, who came to New Orleans in 1727. They were in charge of the casket girls, young women sent over from France at the request of Bienville to marry New Orleans’ colonists. The nuns instructed the casket girls to be upstanding women in society as well as good wives to the settlers, and in the course of their scholastic and domestic educations, the girls were taught the art of praline making. Eventually the casket girls were married off and began to settle throughout New Orleans and around southern Louisiana, and their culinary education combined with local traditions become the foundations of the famous creole cuisine we know today.

(They were called Casket Girls (les Filles a la Casette) because each came to the city furnished with a casket-box filled with all their worldly possessions. They were distinguished from other women coming to New Orleans because they were hand-picked from orphanages and convent schools and charged to the Church to be molded into women of high morals, despite their less-fortunate circumstances of origin.)

The Advent of Praline Bacon

Fast forward, oh, 278 years later, and Elizabeth’s Restaurant in New Orleans, invented the sinfully delicious morsels of Praline Bacon in 1998. This is the ultimate bacon candy, that breaks every diet rule on the planet and has quickly become a new New Orleans, Southern foodie staple.

Now partially because we have a big, lovely jug of Mohawk Valley Pure Maple Syrup, and partially because VooDoo Donuts in Portland, Oregon has forever spoiled us for bacon candy with their Maple Bacon Donut, we have decided to tweak the classic recipe and make MAPLE Praline Bacon! (It’s really not MUCH of a tweak, considering New Orleans is crawling with Maple Pralines at every corner confectionary! It was only a matter of time..)

So this is the classic N’awlins recipe, the ONLY difference being the added twist of brushing the bacon strips with pure maple syrup before coating them with the praline mixture. And OMGEE YUM! Enjoy!

You Will Need:

1 pound of thick cut bacon

2 cups of light brown sugar

½ cup of pecans

3 tablespoons of pure maple syrup

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Lay the bacon strips on a sheet pan and bake for 10 minutes, or until the bacon appears to be about half way done. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

In a blender, combine the brown sugar and pecans, and process until fine. Next, brush the bacon strips on both sides generously with the maple syrup. Sprinkle the sugar pecan mixture over the bacon.

Place the bacon back into the oven and cook for another 10 minutes or until the bacon has reached a caramel color. Watch carefully because cooking times vary based on the thickness of the bacon.

Remove from the sheet and lay single file on wax paper to let cool. Then NOM NOM NOM!!

Are you a bacon fanatic? Have you tried any “bacon candy”? Share below!

Also, if you haven’t already, click below to enter to win a 32. oz jar of Mohawk Valley’s Pure Maple Syrup! Raffle ends February 14, 2014!