How to Make a Bacon Cornucopia (“Carnecopia”)

With the weather starting to feel like fall, we thought a cornucopia would be in order for the birthday BBQ. But how about a bacon cornucopia? A bacon cornucopia… Such gluttony! How could we resist. And so, the bacon cornucopia was born…

Bacon cornucopia, with ribs and tri-tip spilling out. Oh, and sparklers for good measure.

Supplies:

chicken wire, about 2′ x 2′

cotton or hemp twine

scissors you don’t mind ouching by cutting chicken wire

4 lb bacon

1/2 box toothpicks

aluminum foil

cookie sheet with taller edges

cookie drying rack or other rack that the bacon cornucopia can cook on

oven

Instructions on How to Make a Bacon Cornucopia:

1) Cut chicken wire into a square with a rounded edge. I found it easiest to fold it together into the shape of a horn and cut it like that. You’ll want one edge of the cornucopia lip to be shorter than the other. The longer edge will be where the goodies spill out.

How to make a bacon cornucopia step 1: Cut chicken wire. Note: we ended up cutting about 8" off our cornucopia as we were building it. The bacon was so heavy that it wasn't wrapping properly. I would suggest no more than 18" from the most protruding lip of the cornucopia to the tip.

2) Fold chicken wire into a horn shape and use your twine to string it shut.

How to make a bacon cornucopia step 2: String it shut

3) Being careful not to poke yourself on the chicken wire, bend the wire into a horn shape, keeping in mind that the horn tip should point up and the longer edge lip should be the base of the cornucopia.

How to make a bacon cornucopia step 3: Bend wire into cornucopia shape

4) Wash well with soap and water to ensure and debris and dust are cleaned off. Dry.

5) Wrap horn with aluminum foil.

6) Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

7) Open four packs of bacon and separate the slices to make them easy to grab individually as you build your horn.

8) Start wrapping at the tip. Make sure that as you wrap, you are overlapping the bacon by half, as the bacon will shrink. Use toothpicks to hold the bacon in place.

How to make a bacon cornucopia step 8: Start wrapping bacon at the tip.

9) Continue wrapping all the way up. As the bacon warms up, it may start to loosen. Use more toothpicks. I had considered wrapping it in cotton twine as well, but only had hemp (hemp would leave small threads behind, so I opted to continue with toothpicks).

10) Wrap thickly all the way to the lip edge. Due to the weight of the bacon, rotating the bacon cornucopia toward the end became difficult. I ended up picking up the bacon and wearing it like a meat puppet on my hand, and continuing to wrap bacon slices around.

11) For the cornucopia lip, fold slices of bacon in a zig zag pattern, poking tooth picks through both sides (through bacon, wire skeleton, and bacon again) to hold it into place.

How to make a bacon cornucopia step 11: Wrap the lip of the bacon cornucopia

12) When your cornucopia is all wrapped up in bacon, you’re set to go! Put it in the oven (325 degrees) for 30 minutes, laying on its side so that the pointed tip of the cornucopia is pointing sideways.

How to make a bacon cornucopia step 12: Ready, Set, Bake!

13) At 30 minutes, gently flip cornucopia over. Make sure you’ve stabilized it with a tool inside the bacon cornucopia as well as using something to hold the bacon in place on the outside. Be careful of the tip.

How to make a bacon cornucopia step 13: Flip the bacon cornucopia.

14) Bake at 325 degrees for another 30 minutes. Your cornucopia is almost done!

15) Let bacon cornucopia rest for 3-5 minute, then gently remove and discard toothpicks. You do not want to wait too long for this step, or removing the toothpicks will break the bacon. Do this while the bacon is still somewhat soft and warm.

How to make a bacon cornucopia step 15: Remove toothpicks. Note: As you can see, I did a terrible job of taking my own advice. Layer your bacon well to prevent gaps and aluminum foil showing through.

16) Allow to cool completely and carefully move to platter where you will be serving. Add plentiful grilled meats, vegetables, or whatever else you’d like pouring out of your bacon cornucopia.

Bacon cornucopia - Final Product (though little potluck gremlins had already started nibbling at the bacon around the edges of the cornucopia).

17) Revel in your bacon cornucopia gluttony. The “WOW” factor of this centerpiece is well worth it, but you may never want to eat bacon again after this. You have been warned.

Bacon is one of the ultimate anti-me foods… to find out what’s been cooking in my Low Amine kitchen lately, check out my primary blog, Low Amine Recipes (http://aminerecipes.com).