Birthday Bacon!

Not only has March brought us MORE COLD weather, but it also brings my husband's 31st birthday [30's are the new 20's...right? I hope.]. One thing you should know about my sweet, darling, light of my life hubs is that...he HATES getting gifts or being surprised! This is where we are perfectly matched for each other, because I LOVE to give gifts and plan surprises [you can probably guess how nervous he gets around Christmas and Birthday time. Not kidding he reminds me daily that he doesn't need anything or want me to spend any money on him]. He always says that there is "nothing" he needs. Well, everyone has a weakness...and boy do I know what that is for my love...BACON! Swear to God, it's like his kryptonite. [Mason has also developed the same weakness...must be a guy thing so I knew keeping Mason's sticky fingers out of this gift was going to be tricky].

So, my brilliant self has come up with the best Birthday present ever. Yes. ever. To complete this masterpiece of epic Birthday proportion you should also know that his second weakness is craft beers [the weirder the flavor the better].

Let's begin...

My idea began with a trip I was remembering down to Florida to visit some family, we stopped by the local Total Wine store [it was my husband's first experience in the store and let's just say the employees were probably worried we were going to set up camp as long as we were in there]. Fast forward two hours later and Vince has finally picked out his craft beers to try...one of which was called Rogue Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Ale [to me there is no appeal what so ever to try, but he seemed overly excited to get it in his belly].

Remembering how much he loved this beer [excuse me. crafted masterpiece] it made me start thinking about bacon...what could I do with bacon that he's never had before...hmmm...hmmm...

As you can probably imagine it took me a minute to come up with an idea and then I gave up and logged onto Pinterest. As always Pinterest saved the day...here is the awesome post that I found! Now of course I needed to make it my own so I decided to also incorporate the glazed doughnuts from the beer along with the chocolate covered bacon [yes. yes. I know. best wife ever right here people]! My plan was to use the glazed doughnuts as the "base" for my bacon "flowers" [can you picture where I'm going with this]. Of course what would be a Birthday present without a Birthday card...so to distract Mas [who is also in love with bacon] I put him to work on making Daddy's card [sometimes I am too smart for my own good].

I also decided to make a custom Birthday card for my love as pictured below. I know it is a little hard to read so here's what it says:

                          I love you, like a back alley hooker loves crack.
                     I love you, like a zombie loves brains.
                     I love you, like a fat kid loves cake.
                     I love you, like a fish loves water.
                     But most of all...

                     I love you, like a pig loves not being bacon!
                     Happy Birthday!
                     Your's Always,
                     Amazing #1 Wife

And now onto the good stuff...this is so much easier to explain with photos...so here we go!

Late night baking, anyone?

Just so you know my 4 year old almost shit a brick when he saw we were making something with his three favorite food groups...bacon. glazed doughnuts. chocolate.

Next...string that bacon up!

Make sure the bacon doesn't lay flat or it will start to stick to all the grease that runs off while baking [eewwww].

Than bake at 375 degrees until desired crispy-ness!

Yummo! This was the point where Mas said "I think it's done, let's just give it to him like this. Can I have some yet?"

Time to make the chocolate! Okay. Melt the chocolate is more accurate...

I used Baker's Semi-Sweet baking chocolate [two bars are needed and I had just enough chocolate to coat each piece of bacon nicely]!

Now the next part I have no pictures of because frankly my hand's were covered in chocolate and rolled in sprinkles [or as I like to refer to it....the happiest half hour of my day]. Plus, Mas was too busy trying to sneak off with the chocolate covered mixing spoon to take any pictures for me.

But it's pretty easy to explain, I just used a spoon to drizzle the chocolate over the bacon until it was fully covered, then I held the bacon over a bowl and covered it in sprinkles. I put the bacon on fresh wax paper and then popped that bitch in the fridge to cool overnight!

Now onto the decorations!

Homemade Birthday sign...because I'm just that good.

I used three glazed doughnuts each as my "vase" then stuck the bacon right in the middle [it was surprisingly steady]! Then I pulled out the only drink to have with your chocolate covered bacon and glazed doughnuts...MORE glazed doughnuts and bacon in beer form of course!

Here are some more pictures of the finished product...again sorry for the shitty lighting.

So, that's it! Another birthday for the history books! My husband is so damn lucky I love him like I do...I mean so far I've already received THREE separate marriage proposals alone for this gift! Plus, as an added bonus Mas was on cloud nine at the thought of having breakfast this morning with daddy...so both boys happy and Nash...well he was a little annoyed that he didn't have enough teeth yet to go to town on the bacon but I'm sure daddy shared some of the glazed doughnuts with him.