Tried It Tuesday: Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

One day, about week or so ago, when my hubby came home from work, he said, “Guess what I had at work today?”

Since his office tends to order food in for the employees quite often, it could have been pretty much anything, so of course, I didn’t know.

“Bacon chocolate chip cookies.”

As his words registered, I thought, “That’s genius.” And then and there I told him that I’d be making some…soon.

Because I was sure I could find a recipe for them on Pinterest.

I was right, and I had plenty of options to choose from.

When I realized we had company coming down for the weekend, I knew I had to make these cookies for us all to try out.

Now, I know some people think that bacon in everything is kind of cliché and so overdone, but you know what? There is a reason, people:

Bacon is GOOOOOD! 🙂

Therefore, I set out on Friday to make my first ever batch of bacon chocolate chip cookies. I have to admit that I was pretty excited.

The first step is to cook your bacon, obviously. And while you can do that in any way you like, I prefer to cook my bacon in the oven, per Alton Brown’s method:

“Place the strips of bacon onto a sheet pan fitted with a rack and place into a cold oven. Turn the oven to 400 degrees F and cook for about 12 to 15 minutes, depending on how crispy you like your bacon. Remove from rack and drain on paper towels.”

This is an easy way to get crispy bacon without much effort. 🙂

I let the bacon cool a little, then transferred it to some paper towels to drain. I also poured the bacon fat from the bottom of the baking sheet into a measuring cup. I used a 12-ounce pack of bacon and ended up with about ½ cup of fat.  You need ¼ cup for this recipe.

To make the cookies, I adapted this recipe for bacon chocolate chip cookies. You are basically making a traditional chocolate chip cookie, but you substitute ¼ cup of the butter with the bacon fat and eliminate the usual teaspoon of salt. When you fold in the chocolate chips, you can add in bits of crumbled bacon, too. That’s pretty much it!

Since this was my first time making them, I kind of underestimated how much the cookies would spread out on the baking sheet, so as they baked, the cookies spread into one big connected cookie, plus I think I made them too big. I also let them cook a bit too long so they were a little crunchier than I would have liked.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry too much about the presentation of the cookies since I was serving them to my family and very close friends. I did, however, whip out my biscuit cutter to cut out a few round cookies. I did a few with my star-shaped cookie cutter, too, just for the boys. The extra, odd-shaped edges were more like cookie sticks, which made them great for dunking in milk. 🙂

Oh, and despite not being the prettiest cookies I’ve ever made, they were still pretty tasty. Like, really, really yummy. While they are still similar to a regular chocolate chip cookie, they are different enough that they aren’t the same at all.

In fact, I was right. Bacon chocolate chip cookies ARE genius.

I know that you are eager to try these for yourself, so here is how I made them:

Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

February 2, 2016

by Kishona

Category Recipes Tried It Tuesday

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) Butter, softened
• 1/4 cup Bacon Fat
• 1 cup Brown Sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 2-1/4 cup Flour
• 1-1/2 cups Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips
• 1/2 cup Bacon, crumbled (optional)

Instructions

1. Cook bacon until crispy. (I baked a 12-oz. package of bacon in the oven at 400 degrees, about 12-15 minutes, until crispy.)
2. Remove bacon to cool and pour off bacon fat in to a measuring cup to cool and solidify.
3. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
4. In a small bowl, blend together the flour and baking soda. Set aside.
5. Cream together your softened butter, bacon fat, and sugars in a large mixing bowl until fluffy.
6. Add eggs, one at a time. Beat well after each addition.
7. Beat in vanilla.
8. Gradually add in the flour mixture. Mix until flour is just incorporated.
9. Fold in chocolate chips and bacon crumbles.
10. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto a parchment lined (or ungreased) baking sheet.
11. Bake for 8-11 minutes, until golden brown.
12. Allow cookies to cool a couple of minutes on the baking sheet, then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely...if you can wait that long.

Tags

bacon,

bacon chocolate chip cookies,

chocolate chip cookies,

cookie cutter,

cookies,

genius,

homemade,

kitchen,

recipe,

Tried It Tuesday,

yummy

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