PO-MO (pomegranate molasses) Bacon

So it was my mom's birthday and I sorta forgot to get her a present.  Luckily, if you can cook you always have that in your back pocket so my present was making her a birthday brunch.  I was gonna make her rose water white chocolate bread pudding because the woman loves her rose flavored nonsense but then the idea for these little beauties popped into my head and I redid the whole menu.  The other stuff was pretty good too: thyme and goat cheese pancakes with honey, strawberry cucumber salad with feta and vanilla cardamom mimosas; I'll probably post those recipes on here eventually but these were definitely everyone's favor part of the meal so they're coming first.  When it comes to candied bacon like this, you have to get the thickest cut you can get.

1 lb thick cut bacon
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp pomegranate molasses
fresh black pepper (as much as you like)

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. In a large bowl, toss the bacon with the brown sugar and black pepper.  Then drizzle on the pomegranate molasses, massaging it in.
3. Lay the bacon out in a single layer on a cooling rack over a cookie sheet to collect the drippings (I HIGHLY recommend wrapping the cookie sheet completely in foil to avoid having to scrub bacon grease and melted sugar off it later)
4. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until crispy and delicious.

Dutch Baby

This is a super easy breakfast recipe thats relatively fast to make.  You pretty much just run all the ingredients through a blender then pop them into a skillet and pop the skillet into the oven.  Its more or less a huge popover.  Some people might be put off by the Dr. Oetker because it's artificially flavored.  If you are one of those all natural, locally grown, organic people you can switch it out for some other vanilla sugar, but Dr. Oetker is what my Oma always uses when she bakes.  A lot of grocery stores carry it but if you can't find it try a German grocery store.


2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tbsp melted butter
2 tbsp butter
2 1/2 oz AP flour
2 tbsp sugar
2 packets Dr. Oetker Vanilla Sugar
1 pinch of salt

powder sugar to serve
Maple syrup/honey/ice cream/whipped cream/fruit to serve

1. preheat the oven to 350
2. pop a 10 inch cast iron skillet in the oven for 10 minutes to heat it up.
3. add the unmelted butter to the skillet and return to the oven to heat it up.
4. while the butter is melting in the oven, in a blender combine the eggs, milk, 1 tbsp melted butter, flour, sugars, and salt. Blend for 20-30 seconds.
4.  Immediately pour the batter into the skillet and return to the oven, bake for 30-35 minutes.  When its golden brown around the edges and all puffed up, remove from the oven, slide out of the skillet and dust with powdered sugar and cut into wedges with a pizza cutter.

Spanish Eggs

I first became aware of Spanish eggs from the show please like me (which happens to be hilarious).  Each episode is named after the dish that the main character makes in the opening credits.  It would make a great brunch or paired with a salad, dinner.  If you wanna make it a bit more substantial, you can replace the bacon with italian sausage or fresh chorizo.

1 medium onion, diced
4 strips of bacon
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 pint cherry tomatos, cut into quarters
1 tsp of coriander seeds, freshly ground
1/2-1 tsp sriracha, based on your tastes
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
couple dashes worcestershire sauce
4 eggs
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

1. preheat the oven to 350
2. fry up the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat.  Once the bacon is golden brown and crispy, remove and drain on paper towels.  either remove some of the bacon grease or add olive oil to make sure you have about 1 tablespoon of oil/fat in the skillet. once cool enough to handle, chop up the bacon.
3. Over medium add in the onion.  Cook for a few minutes until the onion starts to soften.  add in the garlic, tomatoes, coriander, and Italian seasoning. Continue to cook until the tomatoes are heated through and softened a bit, a couple more minutes.  add in the worcestershire sauce, sriracha, bacon, salt and pepper.
4.  Grease 4 ramekins with olive oil.  spoon about a 1/3 of a cup of the tomato mixture into each ramekin and then break an egg on top.  Drizzle each with olive oil and then pop in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until the egg white is more or less set.

Blueberry Muffins

I remember the blueberry muffins my oma making being so good.  Recently I tried them and realized how wrong I was.  Alton Brown's muffins, however, are good but I thought I could give it a try to improve them; this recipe is based off his.  The almond paste and butter flavoring ensure that even if you don't get a blueberry in a bite it'll still be delicious.

12 1/2 oz cake flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup vanilla yogurt
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable or other neutral oil
1 egg
1 1/2 tbsp almond paste
1 tbsp butter flavoring
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
hefty pinch of salt

1. Sift or whisk the flour, baking soda, powder, and salt together.
2. In a blender combine the yogurt, sugars, oil, butter flavoring, egg, and almond paste and blend unto homogenized
3. Take a tablespoon of the flour mixture and toss the blueberries in it, this will keep the berries from sinking to the bottom.
3. Pour the wet stuff on the dry stuff, and stir it together as quickly and using as few strokes as possible. The more your stir, the tougher they get so best to minimize it.  Fold in the blueberries
4. fill muffin tins 3/4 of the way full and bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. serve warm with butter or clotted cream.