Chocolate Chip Bacon Cookies

If anyone is still reading this blog after my extended absence (aka laziness) over these last couple weeks, I love you so.  I could make lots of excuses for you as to why I haven't been blogging but you don't want to hear about my crazy job, my vacation, the multiple culinary failures that made me doubt myself...No, you just want to get to the cookies!

Now, if you think the combination of chocolate and bacon sounds disgusting, you would be very wrong.  So very wrong.  Bacon is becoming a very popular ingredient in desserts.  Any by popular I mean in the big fancy restaurants that we don't have here in Cow Town USA.  Here the only restaurant getting behind the bacon craze is Denny's.

Why should they get to have all the fun?

Chocolate Chip Bacon Cookies
Start to finish: 40 minutes
Makes 18 cookies

5 strips bacon
1 cup plus 3 tbsp whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
6 tbsp butter (feel free to substitute up to 3 tbsp applesauce...but they will still be bacon cookies no matter how much butter you use)
1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup chocolate chips

First we are going to bake our bacon.  In my opinion baked bacon is way better than microwave bacon or skillet fried bacon, mainly because the excess fat bakes off the meat, leaving your bacon super crispy and way less fatty.

Turn your oven up to 400 degrees.  Place a cooling rack inside a foil lined cookie sheet.  Lay 5 slices of bacon across the grates.

Bake these for approximately 15 minutes.  Keep an eye on them so they don't burn.  Also turn the vents on before you open the oven door because the fat will smoke at 400 degrees.

When it is done, it should look like this:

And in case you are curious, this is all the fat you leave behind.

 I thought about subbing this for the butter in the recipe but the recipe calls for solid butter, not melted, so I just tossed the bacon fat.

While your bacon is baking, prepare your dough.  In a medium bowl, toss together the flour, baking soda, and salt.  In your mixer bowl, cream the butter and sugars.

Then add the egg and extract.  Beat that together and then incorporate the dry ingredients.

Using a spatula, fold in the chocolate chips and the bacon which you will finely chop after it comes out of the oven.  Oh and also, when your bacon is done, turn the oven down to 350 before you bake the cookies.

Spoon these by tablespoon onto a cookie sheet.  Give these cookies plenty of room to grow because they spread out nicely.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges just start to brown.

After they sit for a couple minutes, scoop them onto a cooling rack.  I don't have anything else to say about these cookies, except...

Nom. Nom. Nom.