It started with the bourbon caramel. Then there was the chocolate. And finally I bought the molds. Oh, how my life has changed.
Simple? You bet. The hardest part? Finding the right tools. I highly suggest this Chocolate Peanut Butter-Cup Mold from Amazon. Now I don’t really like or have the room for single purpose tools in my tiny kitchen – but it’s more than a candy mold. I’ve made more than a dozen, dozen cupcakes with it. I plan to make baby fudges. Oat treats? Bacon bites? I’m going to make EVERYTHING.
Painting the mold was messy – but finger licking delicious. Rebels that we are – we painted with a mini spatula and a plastic butter knife! I can imagine a tiny bristle paint brush would work just as well or even better. If you’re into doing things neatly.
For these caramels, I used our Bourbon Caramel recipe – because it’s that finger licking good when you spill it everywhere – and Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate. It melted beautifully – much better than the white chocolate did in earlier batches.
In a test batch, I left a smidgeon of space for a dash of booze. While messy, a little whiskey surprise was totally tasty. Yes. I’ve given you permission to play with the booze and make mistakes.
Bacon Topped Dark Chocolate Bourbon Caramels Recipe
Ingredients
Chocolate Shells (makes roughly 30)
- 8 to 16 oz dark chocolate
- 1 slice of bacon chopped up finely (optional with sea salt) to top
Bourbon Caramel Bacon Recipe (originally from here)
- 1/2 lb of bacon
- ½ cup sugar in the raw
- ½ stick of butter
- ¼ cup of water
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 shots of bourbon
Spray your candy molds with nonstick spray, and dust lightly with cocoa powder.
Melt 3/4 the of chocolate in a microwave safe bowl or a double boiler. In a microwave, heat for 60 seconds, stir, and continue heating and stirring every ten seconds until smooth.
Paint the sides of your candy molds. Be sure to focus on the sides, as the chocolate will drip to the bottom and make a thicker bottom if you’re not careful. Let the chocolate harden.
Now is a good time to start the caramel mixture from the original caramel recipe.
Go back over the molds to make sure there are no cracks or thin spots, especially on the sides. Allow to harden once more.
Pour in your caramel mixture until about 90% full, leaving room at the top to create a lid or seal. Let the mixture set until firm or hardened.
Heat up the remaining chocolate until smooth. Delicately spread a layer of chocolate on top. Sprinkle on your bacon or other desired toppings. Or more bacon!
