Experiments in deliciousness: Bacon chocolate chip cookies with maple cinnamon glaze.

*EDIT 1/18/07*
For those of you who are just now reading this post, here are a few things I'd like to note-

• Yes, there is bacon on the inside of the cookie as well as on the top as a garnish
• Yes, I used "Streaky" bacon, not "canadian" bacon.
• Maple syrup is not the same thing as maple extract. Maple extract is much stronger than even reduced maple syrup. You will not achieve the same effect as Maple extract with Maple syrup!
  
• The cinnamon maple glaze is there for a reason. Have you ever splashed a little maple syrup on your breakfast bacon? Its not half bad. It bridges the gap between pork and cookie.
• if you change the recipe or the ingredients and you're not happy with the outcome, Sorry. Don't blame me.
• If the idea of bacon cookies doesn't sound good to you, pass on through. Complaining is optional and most likely to be ignored.

And lastly-

• PLEASE OH PLEASE remember to cook your bacon before using it to make the cookie. No one wants a bit of uncooked pork in their cookie. That would be the opposite of delicious.
  

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This whole thing started the other night when my husband and I were having a conversation about what foods could and could not be made better with the addition of bacon.


Sure, that was a good salad, but it would have been so much better with bacon. That was a delicious baked potato.. I wish it had some bacon on it. You know what was missing from breakfast this morning?- bacon. I think we've come up with so many foods which bacon can enhance, that we really were wondering what foods it wouldn't.

We came up with quite a few ideas... Lemon and bacon should stay far far away from each other, at least as far as a direct contact with the lemon juice goes (and this is just my personal opinion). The tartness of the citrus would render bacon's smoky rich undertones utterly useless.

This would definately be bad for bacon. Also, bacon and peaches are a no go (at least for me, as I'm not a fan of peaches). This means no bacon peach cobbler, no peaches and cream with bacon. Actually, bacon and milk should probably stay far away from each other (again, as far as direct contact with the milk itself goes). Bacon panna cotta? no. Not good. Bacon Jello also wouldn't work. I think the bacon might actually interfere with gelatin's jelling properties, but I don't know for sure, because I haven't yet tried it. And there will definitely be no boiling of the bacon. Have you seen 'Better off dead'? Ew.

Then we started talking about what bacon has successfully been added to, and the thought of the maple bacon bar donut at Voodoo donut back home, and Vosages bacon chocolate bar made me wonder..

Could I make a cookie with bacon? How about a chocolate chip cookie?


My husband cringed. He asked me to make a small batch, just in case. He's a big fan of standard chocolate chip cookies, so to see a whole batch go to waste if the bacon addition didn't work, I think it might have made him cry.

But I had to do it. The bacon and chocolate chip cookie had to be made.


So I did it. I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, split the dough in half and added a whole mess of bacon to it. I probably would have called it quits at half a cup of bacon bits, but I couldn't see the bacon in the dough, so I added another half cup. That's a whole cup of bacon bits in half a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

(this photo is iso you can see the bacon bits in the cookie itself)Typically, I would never advocate the addition of meat to a sweet cookie, but I've always viewed bacon as "the candybar of meats" so I only felt slightly weird about it.

Amazingly enough, these cookies are DELICIOUS.

I topped them with a small amount of cinnamon maple glaze and a little piece of bacon, just so people know, YES! There is bacon in here.

So if you're feeling adventurous, or if you know of a bacon obsessed nerd who might appreciate these cookies, you should definitely make them. Here is my recipe-

Bacon chocolate chip cookies-
(this is for a FULL batch)

3/4 cup butter(It has been suggested that using 1 full cup of butter works best due to cookie dough dryness)
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon hazelnut (or almond) extract *Edit- It has been suggested that the almond flavouring may be overpowering to the flavour of the cookie, feel free to add this ingredient to taste*
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg (It has been suggested that using 2 eggs works best due to cookie dough dryness)
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 cups bacon bits (if preferred, you can separate the dough into two parts and only make half of the dough into bacon cookies, in which case you'll only want to use 1 cup bacon bits)

*An important note- Be sure to use real bacon bits, not Bacos *See large print at the bottom of this post*

Also, you can make your own bacon bits, just make sure you pat down the bacon chunks with paper towels to remove as much extra bacon grease as possible. *Edit* one of my readers made their own bacon bits and found out that apparently it takes about 2lbs of bacon to make 2 cups of bacon bits, just for future reference.

Directions-

preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

Beat together the butter, sugars, flavouring and eggs until creamy. In another bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir together. Dough will be slightly soft. If you want a cakier cookie, add another half cup of flour. Add in chocolate chips and bacon bits. Stir until well integrated. Place dough on a sheet of waxed paper and refrigerate at least an hour. Remove dough from fridge, pinch off 1 1/2 inch pieces of dough and roll into balls. Set dough balls about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten dough balls slightly with your fingers in the center.

Bake cookies for about 10 minutes, or until the dough starts to turn golden brown. Allow cookies to cool on a cooling rack while you ready the glaze.

Maple cinnamon glaze-

2 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon maple extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon *edit- it has been suggested that 1 teaspoon may be a bit much, so go ahead and add to taste*
enough water to make a thick glaze (I used about 3 tablespoons)

Mix all ingredients together until smooth and creamy. If lumpy, use a whisk.

Spread a small amount of the glaze on the top of each cookie and top with a small piece of crisp cooked bacon.

Voila! Delicious!

-A.

Just a little note-
I am in no way saying that I am the first person to create "bacon cookies", I'm just sharing with you how I came about making a batch of them myself (although I did do a web search and wasn't really able to find much on cookies with bacon in them, not everyone posts stuff on the internet.) And the recipe that I came up with.

If you're upset because they're made with meat, you can just as easily make them with egg substitute, earth balance instead of butter and fake bacon.

Also, if you do not like the bacon cookies, don't make them. Insulting me because you can't handle the bacon/cookie combo is completely unnecessary. You're more than welcome to keep your opinion to yourself. These are purely a novelty/experimental cookie.

I am not planning on making meat cookies a regular part of my baking profile, so don't worry. There will be no sausage patty cupcakes or beef candy... Although I did make meat cupcakes for April fools day...

I just needed to try something fun. Bacon cookies ARE fun. Bacon is funny.
It just so happened to taste pretty good.