How To: Mmmm… DIY Bacon-Flavored Pixy Stix

If there's anything the Internet has taught us, it's the fact that, just because two things shouldn't go together, does not under any circumstances mean that someone won't find a way to make them go together.

Take this recipe, for instance. When you think of Pixy Stix, all kinds of nostalgic memories probably come to mind, but I doubt that any of them have much to do with bacon. In the food world, it has become acceptable to throw bacon into pretty much anything, but these Bacon Pixy Stix by Instructables user Canida may be one of the most bizarre.

The recipe won 4th place at the 2012 San Francisco Bacon Takedown, so maybe it's not as strange (and wrong) as it sounds.

Think your taste buds can handle it? Here's what you'll need to make your own.

• 1/3 pound thin-sliced fried bacon
• 2 cups dextrose powder
• about 5 teaspoons cornstarch
• about 2 tablespoons tapioca maltodextrin
• about 1.5 teaspoons citric acid
• plastic straws for packaging (optional)

The trick to the bacon is to fry it until it's very crisp, then get all the moisture off it by patting it dry with paper towels. The dextrose powder and cornstarch go into a food processor or blender to give it the right texture for the Pixy Stix.

Once you have your powder, it goes into the food processor with the bacon, citric acid and tapioca maltodextrin, which soaks up any excess grease left over from frying. The final product should be a fine powder with no clumps, and should taste like...well, Pixy Stix with bacon.

The final step is filling your straws. To make it easier, you can use a plastic funnel and some sort of long, narrow object (Canida recommends a skewer or chopstick) to push it down.

Of course, you don't have to put it in straws if you'd rather just eat it with a spoon, but half the fun of Pixie Stix is how you eat them. Canida suggests using this as a flavoring to sprinkle on top of other foods as well. Check out her tutorial for more details and photos of the process.

Want to make your own Pixie Stix, but are too weirded out by the bacon flavor? Canida's other recipe uses freeze-dried fruit for more traditional flavors.