I'm PRO-bacon. It can go into desserts, like the maple bacon doughnut at Voodoo Doughnut (um...YUM!). I have topped bread pudding with a candied bacon pecan crumble (butter, bacon, pecans, brown sugar, and pepper); its just delightful. However, bacon can be done poorly...which it sounds like it was with that dessert you described...too much grease...too much bacon.

Don't give up on bacon ice cream! There's an awesome ice cream shop here in Asheville that does a wonderfully subtle maple bacon brown sugar ice cream. It's delicious, and there are just enough bacon flecks in it to keep it interesting. Mmm...

As much as I love using bacon in stuff, the thing I love about it even more is getting all that free pork tallow to cook with after (the grease). It is really easy to use for alot of stuff and is a healthy fat (pretty much all animal fats are way better for you than any of the fake fats e.g. canola or vegetable oil) also it can give just a touch of smokey flavor without making a dish heavier.

One of my favorite uses is when making any recipe that calls for first sauteing some onions. Use a few Tb. of bacon grease and you get to re-use (no waste) and add an extra layer to your flavors (great when making Alfredo sauce).

I'm totally with you on the being over bacon thing. Don't get me wrong- I love bacon to an unhealthy degree, but when places like Denny's have special fests dedicated to what weird stuff can we dump bacon in and every "geeky" site on the net is selling shirts that read "I love bacon" and bacon flavored popcorn, salt, air, etc... its just a bit much. Bacon can make the best foods even better. I cram enough to make vegetarians faint into my mac and cheese. But in a donut or ice cream? Please. Trying to get a shock factor out of your food is becoming tacky.

Bacon DOES make everything better, but like many other things, too much of a good thing isn't always great. I think if your ice cream had less bacon in it it would have been good. Everyone is jumping on the bacon dessert bandwagon these days, and its no wonder because it really can be amazing.
We love making candy bacon in the oven. Put your bacon on a baking pan covered in foil, shiny side up (the shiny side reflects more heat) and cover in brown sugar. Cook on 400 degrees for about 30 minutes until the bacon is crispy and the sugar caramelizes on the bacon. I eat it plain or sometimes on toast with lettuce and honey mustard.
Holy pig belly, Batman!

No, but butter sure does. :D

Bacon is probably my only remaining hold-out to becoming a vegetarian... or vegan, for that matter. Magnolia Pub in SF has bacon-wrapped goat cheese-stuffed dates that I am dying to try, and Dynamo Donuts has a maple donut with bacon (though, unlike that top photo, it just has bits of bacon... not entire slices. That could be pretty gross). And I won't even get into my bacon-wrapped hot dog obsession, for everyone's sake.

I think bacon can and will improve any SAVORY dish. But every time I see a sweet dish with bacon added, I get a little bit sick. Then again, I think bacon coated in maple syrup is a tragedy, so it might just be my own personal affliction.

Bacon does not make everything better. I can appreciate that it has a fatty, smoky flavor but as a vegetarian, finding secret bacon in every dish at a BBQ is very frustrating. How about relying on your cooking skills and fresh ingredients instead of adding the same fatty meat to everything? It's tacky and overdone.

Also, I would love to know animal fats are better for you than vegetable ones? Have you heard of cholesterol? Not to mention how good for you olive oil is.

Let me start out by saying that I love bacon. I even think the sweet dishes with bacon can be good. But the bacon-as-trendy-food-ingredient thing has gotten out of hand. Bacon smoothie? Totally unnecessary! Bacon cupcake? Ick. And I've tried many savory dishes where the flavor of the seemingly obligatory bacon totally overwhelms the other ingredients. Adding bacon may get you noticed, but it might not make your dish better.

I have to admit I've never gotten into this whole bacon "thing," but then I am the one in a million person who doesn't really like bacon. I don't mind it, but something about it is always overly salty and greasy for me.

At a certain point, adding a trend ingredient like bacon shows, if anything, a lack of creativity. I recently tried bacon donoughts at a popular restaurant and was underwhelmed. I LOVE bacon-- i can control myself around it-- but sometimes we disrespect the idea of pairing too much. I mean, I love Sriracha, but I don't need a Sriracha cupcake...

I thought bacon could do no wrong until I made some bacon-infused bourbon. What a disappointment. That misadventure aside, bacon is a wonderful ingredient. But it is just that. One ingredient. It should be employed with skill and tact, like any other tool in one's culinary arsenal.

The whole bacon thing is like every other trend I wish would die: cupcakes, cake pops (which have finally just hit here in the midwest and I already wish we could be over them), etc. A few people start using the ingredient creatively and well and then it filters downmarket until it just gets done sloppily and without imagination because it's trendy...but people will mindlessly flock to it, so I can't blame purveyors for jumping on the bandwagon.

bacon bits yes bacon fat no

Sometimes! I'm a little tired of seeing it in EVERYTHING at restaurants, but I still like to experiment with it at home. A strip of bacon crumbled on ice cream is delicious!

The one thing I can't stand is bacon infused vodka. It just feels greasy and doesn't taste good at all.

Next weekend some friends and I are having a Bacon themed night - we're watching tremors and preparing bacon themed dissues.

I think I'm going to do bacon cheeseburger bites - little meatballs stuffed with carmelized onion and cheddar and wrapped in bacon. I can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with.

I have a hard time accepting bacon as a dessert, but in a savory sense, bacon always makes everything better.

I think NicodemusBC was probably referring to overly processed, high-heat refined vegetable oils, not something like a cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil... because the uber-processed oils are undoubtedly devoid of any health benefits the more natural ones have to offer. And yeah, they probably are worse for you than bacon grease, considering you could hardly call them "food" anymore. Food > fake food.

I like bacon a lot and love that it's popping up everywhere. However, I don't think that if you suddenly add bacon everything will taste so much better. But it's a fine line...how much bacon is too much?

my two cents? i don't really care if bacon pops up on everything, because none of those things are going to be anywhere near as amazing, or come even close to fulfilling my baconlust the way actual BACON does. Bacon soda, bacon popcorn, bacon chapstick, bacon gravy - i don't care if these exist or not, as long as actual bacon still does. That's all that matters to me.

Engill, I also do not care for the bacon trend. In fact, I don't like bacon at all. I don't like when people add bacon bits to my salad. I will pick them out. I tried to be open-minded by having an apple wood smoked (or something like that) bacon sandwich with specialty chese from this amazing cheese shop called The Cheese Course and . . . yeah, I couldn't eat it after a few bites. The texture and taste make me gag. And this wasn't the overfried and greasy version of bacon.

Anyway, to each their own!

OVER IT! Sure, salt, fat, and crunch are great but there are better--and more appropriate--ingredients with which to satisfy those cravings.

I love bacon but, ick, not in everything and not in those kind of quantity's.

I'm so ready for this stupid fad to be over. Bacon's fine as an occasional treat--we usually have a full English breakfast on Sunday that includes bacon--but I'm sticking with food that tastes good AND is good for me.

When did American cooking and eating become all about how much animal fat we can choke down in one meal?

I'm omnivorous. I like bacon. I appreciate unusual flavors but I'm tired of bacon everywhere. Bacon in sweets jumped the shark when Denny's started that Baconalia thing.

Bacon has jumped the shark

Bacon does indeed NOT make everything better. It's just like any other flavor, it* works right with certain things and just so very wrong with others.

*Not to imply that bacon is just one flavor, of course.

I'm sick of it as a trend. I love bacon, but half the reason I love it is that I don't eat it that often.
Can we please stop with trendy foods altogether? Acai, bacon, cakepops (nasty), etc. I agree with the poster earlier regarding shock value in foods. I'm tired of seeing so many recipes whose main point seems to be, "Betcha didn't think I could put THIS in there!" Food should be about taste and health, not dares.