Red, White, And Bacon- Sweet Treat Double Takes

Momma Told Me: The best foods sneak up and surprise you.

Summer is nearly here and that means lazy afternoons napping in the hammock, sunny picnics in the park and plenty of gatherings with family and friends over good food. I'll admit, I'm not much of a grill master, but I do love entertaining. Whether I'm the hostess or the lavished attendee, I always have something special on hand for Summertime soirees. Our neighbors and friends always know I'll have something especially unique to add to the spread of delicious Americana staples. This year I'll be causing buffet line double takes with some special sweets masquerading as savory faves!

Believe it or not, sometimes I just want to play with colored sugar dough globs, like modeling clay, at 2 am without having to set up a lighting rig and host a tutorial. Sometimes I have an idea and I go online hunting for someone else who's had an equally zany idea to see how they tried to tackle it first. Bacon sugar cookies are a prime example of both. I apologize, deeply, for the lack of step by step photos on what may seem like a rather involved treat.

Essentially these bacon sugar cookies were pulled off by layering slabs of white, pink, and brown (generic bag mix) sugar cookie dough until they formed a slab of sugar meat, as seen above. 2 hours in the freezer, and side sliced, they produced the adorable cookie dough forms above. Do not be fooled, this was my 3rd batch attempted- it IS trickier than it seems in Not Your Momma's Cookies deceptively complete and simple tutorial. In the end I decided to ditch the 'rods' for 'waves' and used crumpled foil beneath my parchment paper, as well. (If you check out the tutorial, you'll see.)

And, because no self respecting Summer shindig would be complete without some Deviled Eggs I pulled out the plastic egg tray and poured some white melting chocolate carefully into each cubby. While you can place the chocolate directly in the freezer for 2 minutes, then 'pour' the center out and end up with a similar effect, I choose to carve the centers out with a spoon. It turns out I use coconut oil to thin my melting chocolate and this leaves it at quite the agreeable consistency for coring (who knew?)

Decorating my faux deviled eggs was really quite elementary- color a buttercream frosting yellow or make a simple ganache. Just heat 1/2 C Heavy Cream to a boil, remove from heat, add 1 C white chocolate chips, and let sit, covered for 3 minutes. After 3 minutes have passed whisk until even and add yellow food coloring. Pipe into chilled 'egg' chocolates. For some 'bacon' or paprika flecks, use fine red sugar sprinkles to decorate.

Whether you pin these for April Fool's or bust them out this coming Memorial Day weekend, these Bacon Sugar Cookies and Chocolate Deviled Eggs are sure to turn heads and solicit smiles. Again, I'm sorry I decided to tackle the bacon cookies at midnight and left you without one of my tutorials- perhaps another time I will sit down and show you my methods now that I've mastered the concept. In the mean time, do refer to Not Your Momma's Cookies post! Now, tell me, do you have plans for the upcoming holiday weekend?

What Daughter Says: Tired of bringing egg salad to the party? Try one of these fun ideas for Summer cookout-foods and really turn heads!