We’re not normally the type to pick on another blogger, but someone hasn’t done their research.

A blog post written today by Laura Shunk at Westword, Denver’s free arts weekly, points to five things that are supposedly going to spell the end of bacon-mania, and the item at the top of the list is Baconnaise, the authentic bacon-flavored sandwich spread by the guys who first made their mark with Bacon Salt.

Bacon aioli, fine. Bacon fat vinaigrette? Sounds great. But the second Baconnaise hit the mass market, it was a sign that bacon-laced dressings have been stripped down to their most vulgar common denominator. This gnarly stuff doesn’t even need to be refrigerated until after opening, but it’s full of meat. Botulism? Trichinosis? What?

There are a LOT of things wrong with this statement, some of which we touched on in a comment below that blog post:

If you’d done your research, you’d know that Baconnaise, like its sister product Bacon Salt, has no meat in it…for the very reasons you’re harping about.

Also…if the union of bacon and mayonnaise is so “vulgar” and “gnarly”, then why are they always found together on one of America’s most common sandwiches, the BLT?

We, on behalf of bacon lovers everywhere, graciously accept your backpedaling and apologies.

Baconists, we invite you to visit the article now and chime in for yourself!  (We’re especially fond of the first comment, penned by “Anonymous”.  Pure gold, it is.)

UPDATE: Laura Shunk responded to our comment about her blog post, and our buddy from the The Bacon Nation also chimed in.  Read the developments and add your two cents!

Baconnaise fan Dawn Foster found this little gem on the wikipedia page for a nasal spray for allergies:

(via Bacon Salt)

If you follow the Ministry of Bacon or Bad Decisions on Twitter, you might have caught wind of the news that the popular Baltimore dive bar is hosting yet another Bacon & Beer Happy Hour.  You may also remember that we just hosted a Bacon & Beer Happy Hour at Bad Decisions just last week.  So why do it again so soon?

The Travel Channel, that’s why.

After we had already announced Bacon & Beer Happy Hour X, the Travel Channel came a-callin’ and said they’d like to feature Bad Decisions in a show called “Food Paradise”, which picks a favorite kind of food and visits the places that do it the best.  They were getting ready to do an episode on bacon, and purely by word of mouth, they found out about our Bacon & Beer Happy Hour.  Would we do it all over again for the benefit of their cameras?  You bet we would!

If you’ll be in or near Baltimore today, join the party anytime after 5:00 p.m.  The guest chefs from our last two Bacon & Beer Happy Hours will be teaming up to dish out the best items from each of their past menus, plus some fantastic new creations.  The bar will be serving up anything you want to drink (even if you’re not in the mood for a bacon cocktail).

Click here for the Facebook event page for tonight’s shindig.

UPDATE: The Baltimore Sun‘s nightlife blog, Midnight Sun, has posted the menu for tonight’s Bacon & Beer Happy Hour.

If you follow us on Twitter or Facebook, you’re well aware that our 10th edition of Bacon & Beer Happy Hour is going on today at Bad Decisions in Baltimore.  This time around, the all-bacon menu features the creations of guest chef Sajin Renae from Vino Rosina, who went with a Southern “comfort food” feel.  Here’s the menu:

If you’re one of our many Baltimore baconists, come on down anytime between now and two in the morning to treat yourself to some of the goodies!

If there’s one thing that beats the smell of a fresh cup of coffee in the morning, it’s the smell of bacon.  Thanks to Torani, the well-known maker of flavoring syrups used by coffee houses and bars everywhere, you can now have your bacon and drink it too!

Here’s what Torani says about it’s “Bacon Syrup” on its website:

“Bacon enthusiasts will recognize the same savory, meaty flavor as authentic bacon in this salty, sweet syrup. Torani Bacon syrup adds savory bacon flavor to cocktails, lattes, sauces and more. Just add 1/2 – 1 oz. of syrup to a 6-8 oz. beverage, and enjoy this innovative new flavor from Torani.”

Now there’s no excuse for baristas everywhere to not offer bacon lattes, and bartenders everywhere have a new secret weapon in the battle for cocktail supremacy. Expect this syrup to start appearing soon in the many places where Torani is sold, but if you don’t want to wait, you can order it online right now for a mere $6.95 (with discounts for those buying in bulk).

(Thanks to Nicole for the tip, who got it from Consumerist, who got it from a very blasphemous post by Gizmodo.)

You love French toast with bacon, but goodness knows it doesn’t really work that well as a party dish, or as something to snack on while you’re driving.  Wouldn’t it be great if it could be as convenient as, say, a cupcake?

[photo: livejournal/sweetkisses0530]

This is one of the most popular items to ever emerge from the Ministry of Bacon kitchens.  It was a smash hit in its appearance at a recent Charm City Roller Girls roller derby bout, and it was the star attraction at one of our Bacon & Beer Happy Hour events at Bad Decisions in Baltimore.  At the time, when asked for the recipe, we could easily give people a link to find the cupcake instructions on a great blog called Bake and Destroy…but alas, that blog is gone for good.  The recipe for the maple glaze still exists at its original source on LiveJournal…but we figured it’s about time to give you both recipes together.

UPDATE:  Natalie of Bake and Destroy has informed us that the blog is indeed alive and well, at a new home on the web.  We’ve added a link to that site on our “Other Delicious Blogs” blogroll; check ‘em out for more delicioius recipes like this one!

First, the recipe for the French Toast Cupcakes:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted then cooled
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. maple extract
• 1/2 cup whole milk

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line baking pan with paper liners.
2. Mix together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together butter, sugar and eggs until smooth. Make sure the butter is cool or you’ll have scrambled eggs.
4. Whisk in maple extract and then alternate between whisking in flour mixture and milk. Make three additions of flour mix and two of milk. Beat until smooth.
5. Scoop batter into prepared pan and bake 20-25 minutes until golden brown and tops spring back when lightly touched.
6. Cool the cupcakes on a rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely.

And now, the recipe for the maple glaze!

Ingredients:

• 2 c. powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 tbsp. butter, softened
• 3-4 tbsp. milk
• 1/2 tsp. maple flavoring

Directions:

1. Combine powdered sugar, vanilla, maple flavoring, butter and milk.  (To make it even more maple-y, High Priestess Anna usually adds a decent amount of real maple syrup into the recipe.)
2. Stir well until the mixture has the consistency of a glaze.
3. Finally, cook up a ton of bacon till it’s nearly crunchy, then cut up the strips into teeny squares and sprinkle ‘em on top of the frosting. (If you like, you can cook the bacon till it’s crunchy and just crumble it, but that may not be as pretty.)

[photo: blogspot/sckain]

It’s probably safe to assume that there were more bacon explosions being served on Super Bowl Sunday this year than in any year past.   So if you were a host, how could you make sure that your party would be the talk of the bacon world?

BBQ Addicts—the guys who invented the original bacon explosion—have discovered that a guy by the name of Ben “Sweet Lou” Krout didn’t merely figure out how to make a bacon dish worthy of a trophy; he made a bacon dish that WAS a trophy.

Behold…a Lombardi Trophy made out of bacon…the BACOMBARDI TROPHY.

For those who had the good fortune of attending Ben’s party, we’re sure this was a bigger WIN than anything Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints experienced that evening.

(via via via via)

Yesterday, I was looking to grab a quick and cheap bite to eat, and remembered that Burger King was featuring their beefy double cheeseburger for a dollar.  Naturally, I thought to myself, “I should go the extra step and ask them to add bacon to it.”  The extra cost was 60 cents, which seemed reasonable for what I thought I’d be getting.

Cure the ominous music here.

The good news: There were five strips of bacon on my double cheeseburger.

The bad news: The strips of bacon were about three inches long and barely half an inch wide.  In fact, had they been much smaller, they probably would have qualified to be called bacon bits.

I ate some of the bacon by itself, and found it to be the most generic, tasteless bacon I’d ever had.  In a blind taste test, I might not have even thought it was bacon, but rather a thin slice from some sort of bland meat stick.

I put the rest of the bacon on the burger and took a few bites.  Predictably, the flavor of the bacon mini-strips was almost completely drowned out by the rest of the sandwich.

Now, I’m sure there’s a good chance that Burger King has two grades of bacon, and saves the better grade for their more expensive, premium burgers.  (After all, even though Wendy’s has introduced a new, thick-sliced applewood bacon for their Bacon Deluxe and Baconator burgers, their original thinner and unspectacular bacon is still being used for their Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers.)  However, I can’t imagine a reasonable explanation for the little laces of bacon I got on my burger.  This wasn’t one of those times when the cook is at the bottom of the pan, and tries to use up what’s left by giving you enough crumbles to make up for the strips you’re not getting; the size of these strips seemed very intentional and purposeful.

I realize that BK probably uses a different grade of bacon on their pricier burgers, but there’s no excuse for giving someone bacon that undermines even the lowest of expectations, even on a burger that only cost a buck to begin with.  McDonald’s and Wendy’s have realized that high-quality ingredients are what attracts today’s discriminating customer, so they’d be smart to devoting more attention to what’s on the customer’s tray and less attention to producing booty-filled hip hop videos for their creepy mascot.

Goodness knows that there’s no shortage of bacon recipes available on the web, but if you want to add to your skills with some in-person experience, the options are not quite as plentiful.  Luckily, we here at the Ministry are looking out for your best interests.

If you live in the Wasington, D.C. metropolitan area — or if you’ll be there for Thanksgiving weekend — recreational cooking school (and wine bar and retail store) Cookology will be offering a whole day of classes on Sunday, November 29th, during which you can learn how to make all sorts of fantastic bacon dishes.  The class schedule and details of each session are as follows:

• Baking Breads with Bacon, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.:

If the rock band Creed felt as passionately as we do about the allure of a bacon breakfast, Pat from the Zappos blog team thinks this is how they might have written their hit song “My Own Prison”.