Bonfire® Bacon Popovers

For as much as I like to bake sweet treats, I often find the challenge of savory baked goods to be more rewarding. Perhaps it’s because when spices are on the center stage in a recipe there can be so many more possibilities to explore with a flavor profile.

When it comes to condiments or spices (and minerals in the case of salt!), I am a purist at heart. I don’t have ketchup in my home, and the only time I recall happily eating ketchup is on a Burger King Whopper. [The sugar in the ketchup is a nice balance to the pickle.] But in my pantry, you’ll easily find about five varieties of mustard and a number of different barbecue sauces. And – of course – freshly ground black pepper is a constant favorite as a cook and an eater!

I am a long-time fan of using sea salt and kosher salt in recipes, so when I heard about the SaltWorks Fall Recipe Contest I decided to give it a shot. I dusted off six years of recipes from the Baked Chicago blog and found a bacon popover recipe I created about one year ago in which black pepper was the lead ingredient. So I re-envisioned the recipe with smoked salt as the main ingredient to compliment the smokiness of the bacon. And as any good popover recipe does, it also has lots of butter. The result is this recipe for Bonfire® Bacon Popovers, which placed as a runner up in the SaltWorks recipe contest. The coolest thing about being a runner up is the prize: a bamboo salt sampler case filled with 24 artisan salts. I can’t wait to experiment with the Hiwa Kai – Hawaiian Black Lava Salt; maybe I’ll need to schedule a working vacay to Hawaii to do some “research.” That’s the ticket!