Inhuman Swill

This is not a cooking or baking blog, but I would be doing the carnivorous world a huge disservice if I did not share a recipe that my wife Laura Chavoen has been developing over the past few weeks—BACON COOKIES. (By the way, my style guide suggests that BACON COOKIES should always be rendered in all caps. Makes sense to me.)

The recipe is based on the Original Nestlé® Toll House® Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe you can find on every bag of Nestlé® Semi-Sweet Morsels, except that it uses chopped bacon instead of chocolate chips. That's the general description, anyway, but Laura found that using salty, fatty meat instead of semi-sweet chocolate in the recipe necessitated some other adjustments.

So here's the BACON COOKIES recipe she developed after much trial and error, and after much arduous testing on poor Human Subject #814 (a/k/a me).

Laura's Original BACON COOKIES

1		lb. thick cut bacon
2 1/4		cups all-purpose flour
1		tsp. baking soda
1		tsp. salt
1 3/4		sticks butter, softened (7/8 cup)
3/4		cup granulated sugar
3/4		cup packed brown sugar
1		tsp. vanilla extract
2		large eggs
1/3		cup real maple syrup

Cook bacon in sauté pan until crispy but not dark. Drain on paper towels. Save 2 tablespoons of bacon fat. Chop bacon into medium-sized pieces.

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat bacon fat, butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add maple syrup and beat well. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chopped bacon. Let dough sit for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375°. Drop dough by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

That's all there is to it, though Laura does add the following hints:

• Be sure to use thick cut bacon. Do NOT used maple flavored or low sodium. (Yep, tried these. Blech.) Thick cut seemed to cook the most evenly, with all pieces getting nice and crispy but nothing getting dark.
  
  
• Beat the fat/sugar well. Incorporating the air is important because the bacon is heavy and you need to balance it out.
  
  
• After the dough is ready but before you spoon it out to bake, let it rest for about 20 minutes. It keeps the cookies from spreading, which exposes the bacon, which may burn. I also suspect that exposed bacon either changes the moisture level in the oven or the temperature because the cookies that didn't rest were blech.
  
  
• Cook about 9 minutes. Cooking for the full 11 minutes gave the cookies a better color, but the changed flavor in a more well-done cookie made the bacon taste stronger rather than allowing the saltiness and the sweetness compliment each other.

Try them! Don't let my sacrifice be for naught.

BACON COOKIES!


Crossposted from Inhuman Swill

This is for my compatriots from Marvin's Blue Heaven breakfast table: