Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

You heard me right! Bacon + Dark Chocolate is currently my favorite dessert flavor. It all started when my dad shared Vosges Chocolate bars and truffles with us after returning from a meeting with them in Chicago. He does marketing work for lots of businesses, and lucky for us, many of them make delicious food!

So Vosges makes chocolate bars mixed with bacon pieces and let me tell you, they are absolutely delicious. I crave them, all the time. The earthy salty bacon flavor is grounded perfectly by the deep creaminess of the dark chocolate. *mouth watering*

Yesterday I found myself with a lot of bacon on my hands and I didn't know what to do with it. I planned on eating it for breakfast every morning but since it's summer I've been sleeping in till 11 without fail. Yes, be jealous of my awesome ability to sleep in! So I had all this bacon, and a huge bar of dark chocolate and it all become suddenly clear what I had to do.

How could I resist that siren call?

A few notes for a successful outcome. Use good old fatty greasy bacon. You need a lot of fat for this recipe so using Turkey bacon won't work. When you cut it, I found it easiest to do it like so.

Don't worry about the pieces being too big, they will shrink dramatically as they cook. You also don't have to peel apart each slice because they will separate as you stir while cooking.

Be sure to use dark chocolate, and if you have a bar of it I would recommend that instead of chips. It's not too hard to chop the chocolate if it is stored at room temperature. If it is difficult to cut, microwaving it on half power for a few seconds should do the trick. 

Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from Lee Anne Wong for the Cooking Channel
12 oz. bacon cut into pieces
2 1/2 cups flour
2 heaping teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter softened (let it sit at room temperature for a while, don't microwave!)
1/2 cup reserved bacon fat, chilled and set 
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 tbsp rum (the original calls for bourbon, which is probably pretty good, but I didn't have any. If you don't have either, just skip it.)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
8 ounces dark chocolate (65% or more cocoa content) chopped

Cook the bacon in a pan until it's beautiful and crispy. Remove bacon and drain on a paper towel. Carefully strain the fat through a sieve into a container that can hold really hot things without breaking or melting. Don't hold the container while you pour in the bacon fat, you'll totally burn yourself! Put that container in the fridge and let it sit for a good while, perhaps an hour, until it is congealed.

Once the fat is set preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Chop your chocolate while you wait. Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small mixing bowl. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter, 1/2 cup of the bacon fat, sugar, brown sugar, rum (or bourbon) and vanilla until incorporated. Add the eggs and beat well, then gradually mix in the flour mixture. Pour in the chocolate and bacon and stir.

I have a funny way of forming cookies, I like to roll them like meatballs. It works for me. Do whatever you like to do, but make sure that you don't use more than 2 tbsp of dough for each cookie. Place them on your cookie sheet and bake 9 or 10 minutes or until the bottom of the cookie is golden brown. Let cool and enjoy your new favorite cookie!