Salty pork works very well with sweet stuff. Bacon and maple syrup with pancakes or bacon and onion brioche are both excellent examples. If you can feel that vibe then try candying bacon; it’s really easy and you end up with crisp, sticky, varnished rashers that shine like porcine treasure. It works much better with streaky bacon, because it’s fattier and candied pig fat is to die for. It’s still good with back bacon, just be prepared to fight for the streaky end.

Apart from chopping it into pieces and serving with an ice cold beer (even better if you sprinkle a bit of cayenne on the meat before cooking), there are other glorious uses for candied bacon. Here are some of them, foraged from the web by me, while munching on the above. Sticky keyboard ahoy.

• Candied bacon ice cream is the bomb. I use David Lebovitz’s recipe, although I make extra candied bacon to sprinkle on top. This brown butter candied bacon ice cream recipe is next on the hit list.
• Candied bacon martini anyone? It’s clearly not a Martini, as the author points out but I’d sure as hell drink it anyway. I think.
• Jamie whips up a candied bacon salad. In 30 minutes or under, I hope.
• Chocolate covered bacon sweets are so popular across the pond they have their own Wikipedia entry. The Americans as ever are way ahead when it comes to putting sugar where you’d imagine it doesn’t belong and people have started businesses selling sticky porcine confections.
• Candied bacon with pecans or praline bacon – probably my favourite candied bacon recipe of all time.

As I munched on my third piece of candied bacon, I couldn’t shake off the thought of trying to work it into a sandwich. An idea lurked at the back of my mind, both exciting and faintly disturbing. People, I bring you the eggy-bread and candied bacon sandwich. Behold!

The only way to make this sandwich more of a guilty pleasure would be to make it illegal. Fluffy eggy bread yields to the crunch of candy then salty pork. Oh deary me, I did feel the shame. My boyfriend and I managed half each. We couldn’t look each other in the eye afterwards.

Candied Bacon

Streaky bacon, the best quality you can afford. If possible, ask your butcher to cut it quite thick (if you haven’t read the post above, yes I used back bacon. It’s fine but streaky tastes much better).
Light brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 200C. Lay the bacon slices on a non-stick baking tray and sprinkle 1-2 teaspoons of sugar over each one. Cook in the oven for about 6-8 minutes or until golden and caramelised on one side. Remove the slices from the oven and carefully turn them over, wiping them around in the melted sugar on the baking tray. Return to the oven to cook again. You need to watch that bacon like a hawk as it will catch and burn easily. Allow to crisp and cool before eating.

For some sweet variations try using maple sugar to candy the bacon, add some spices or perhaps some smoky chipotle flakes.

I was going to call these ‘Spiced Snail Buns’ but when I tweeted about it I had a load of replies from people who were, quite rightly, confused about the link between snails and buns. It’s the shape, people, the shape!

Anyway. I don’t cook a huge amount of sweet things (ice cream excepted) and puds are not my area of expertise by a long stretch. When I do venture into the World of  Wallace however, I like a savoury note, be it salt in caramel or in this case, spices in cake. I started out with a basic bun and showed it a bit of Peckham love by adding allspice, ground ginger and citrus zests in with the cinnamon, thinking along the lines of a Jamaica ginger cake.

I left them in the oven a few minutes too long but I’d just been dealing with a gas leak (my oven is electric for those detectives amongst you) so you’ll forgive me for feeling a little distracted. I had to use a fan heater to melt the butter for the buns for goodness’ sake. Now that’s dedication.

And come on, they do look like snails, right?

Spiced sticky buns

I started off with a Chelsea Bun recipe from the BBC website then added my own spices and citrus zests. I’ve tried them with the glaze and also with a very thin icing made of just icing sugar and water. I prefer the glaze.

500g strong white flour, plus extra for dusting
1 teaspoon salt
1 x 7g sachet fact-action dried yeast
300ml milk
40g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 egg
Vegetable oil, for greasing

For the filling

25g unsalted butter, melted
75g soft brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Zest of 1 lemon
Zest of 1 orange
100g currants

For the glaze

2 tbsp milk
2 tbsp caster sugar

Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl, then make a well in the middle and add the yeast from the sachet. Warm the milk and butter in a saucepan until the butter is melted and the mixture is tepid.

Add the milk and butter mix to the flour and stir until it comes together in a soft dough. Tip the dough out onto a generously floured work surface. Knead for five minutes, adding more flour if necessary, until the dough is smooth and elastic and no longer feels sticky. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave until doubled in size. Knock the dough back then roll out on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle about 20 x 40 cams in size.

Brush with the melted butter, then sprinkle over the currants. Mix the ground spices with the sugar and sprinkle all over. Starting from the longest edge, roll the dough into a long cylinder. Cut 10-15 slices from it and place them on a greased baking tray, leaving a gap between each one. Let rise for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 190C. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown. For the glaze, heat the milk and sugar gently in a saucepan. Let simmer for a few minutes then remove from the heat.

Place the buns on a wire rack to cool. Brush over the glaze and let cool completely. Serve with a good spreading of butter, if you dare.