Just tried it. I cooked it on high for 5 min. and used parchment paper to loosely sit on top of the baker (like how they demo the meatball recipe.) It's nice to not have to use a lot of paper towels by doing it in the microwave, after it's done, all the grease is in the ridges and I just poured it off into a prep bowl so I could do a second batch. I set the cooked bacon on some paper towels, but really there wasn't any grease on them. I still think I prefer doing it in the oven in the bar pan, though. The microwave dries it out a bit and you can only fit 6 slices in it at a time.
I'm curious how the ridged baker will look 6 months after cooking bacon in it weekly. When I started doing bacon in the bar pan withOUT parchment paper, it got real gross and starting leaking goo off the bottom of the bar pan. Now it is OK since I put parchment paper under the bacon and that traps most of it. Sorry to be a Debbie Downer. It's just, it took me forever to get that goo off my bar pan! I'm afraid to soil my new ridged baker, it looks so pretty!
I used the baker for bacon tonight- with Turkey Bacon. At 5 minutes, it was ok...but the extra 2 minutes over-crisped it. didn't care for it that way. But then again, this was TURKEY bacon, so less fat.
Your stone shouldn't leak. If it does, you should request a replacement because it probably has hairline cracks in it. My 2 bar pans are used all the time for bacon in the oven and I never use parchment paper. They look great and are well seasoned.
It stays on the ridges. I did two batches and did not drain between them with no problem. Worked great. DH is now a microwave bacon fan. He would never try it before this.
I don't have the ridged baker yet, but I used my rectangular baker for an entire pound. It took about 8-10 minutes (6 minutes, then adding two minutes and rearranging bacon so it would cook evenly). My baker is relatively new and wasn't very well seasoned. It's seasoned now I'm looking forward to the ridged baker so I don't have to drain the grease.
I used the ridged baker love it!! the bacon was just right for me. 5 mins then 2 mins came out great. But thats just my taste.
I used mine the other day. I HATE bacon, grosses me out, but my hubby LOVES bacon so I made it for him to be my taste tester. He loved it. It was super easy. I made a pound, took 3 batches at about 5 minutes each. I loved that it didn't take an entire roll of paper towels and I poured the excess grease in a 1-cup prep bowl (I was curious how much it would generate). Filled the entire prep bowl! Gross, gross, gross!!! Precisely why I hate bacon! But, the bacon fan gave it :thumbup::thumbup:
Ok, I'm excited to hear baker works great for bacon...but my ?? is did it clean up easy enough?? I always have issues with Flute Pan coming clean in ridges...and with all those ridges I'm not looking forward to using it. Bad Bad Lisa. But I'm going to have to, as I can't sell it as well if I don't use it, lol. Lisa
But if you take some of that bacon grease and mix it with some Brer Rabbit syrup, it makes a great sop for biscuits! :-O
I let it cool and then used one of those scott green scrubbers and it didn't even look used except it was smoother (not as scratchy). I am SURE the kitchen brush would have done just as well. I just happened to grab the other. It was surprisingly easy to clean.
I baked a 2 pound meatloaf in the ridged baked Sunday night. Awesome! I would bake meatballs that way too.
all good southern cooks save their bacon drippings to season with i keep a jar in the fridge to put mine in....use it all the time.... ~carla
I used it for thick bacon last night. Took over 10 minutes for 5 slices. The grease didn't pour out so well. I felt a lot went down my drain. But, it does still look like new baker after I went at it with the kitchen brush.
A "pour spout" would have been a nice feature for pouring grease out. I made the avocado spread that was on the Product Care Card (for the Ultimate BLT). I liked that they had you just place the garlic cloves whole in the ridges (under the bacon)...so they absorbed the flavor of the bacon from the drippings. Mine weren't bad, because it was Turkey bacon, so very little drippings, but yum! The spread was very tasty.
I did too. I use 93% lean meat and don't get any drippings. What we didn't like is that the meat ended up down in the ridges so it wasn't easy to get neat slices of the meatloaf out of the pan and onto our plates. Cleaned up easily though.
what if you lined bottom with bacon and set meatloaf on top?? My gram used to make her meatloaf with bacon strips on top.