Bacon-Bourbon Brownies with Chipotle Candied Pecans

We've all heard it said many times, "Everything is Better with Bacon."

Not sure if I can fully agree with that statement in the "everything" department. We recently tried chocolate covered bacon and it tasted like a piece of chocolate coated grease. Not tasty in least way in my opinion.

But when I saw the recipe for Bacon-Bourbon Brownies with Pecans in the August Food and Wine they sounded intriguing enough to give a try.

My motivation for baking recently has been in preparation for our family vacation in Chelan  on the Columbia River. With 9 people all together in a vacation house for one week you go through a lot of snacks and goodies and I thought this one might be appealing for us adults.

I gathered my ingredients and gave it a whirl.

I knew they'd have to be good and chocolaty with 3 different forms of chocolate in the recipe.

It was bit odd to add some of the bacon fat to the batter but I told myself to go with it and give it a try.

I measured everything all out, my pet peeve in the baking process

and tried my best to not miss an important component.

And I must say the batter looked and tasted delicious,

even with the bacon fat.

The chopped bacon and pecans are really just a topping on the brownies.

 I made sure to leave a third of the brownies without the pecans because my niece & nephew won't eat anything with nuts. Who knows if they'd try them with bacon..we will find out.

In to the oven they went.

They came out looking and tasting tasty good. The brownie is quite dense and the bacon and pecans are a salty & crunchy addition.

I decided they needed one more addition so I made some last minute Chipotle Candied Pecans as the topper. And those are wonderful.

We'll hope they are a hit with the family we'll find out tomorrow.

Recipe Linked: HERE!