[UPDATE 4/27/2012: I’m spending part of my Saturday giving these out, while I’m at Stumptown ComicsFest manning the booth for the Portland Geek Council of Commerce & Culture, so for those who visit the booth and want the recipe, I’m bumping this post forward. Enjoy!]
Those who keep any sort of tabs on my personal social networking universe know that I’ve been talking up these cookies for weeks, and they’ve been through several revisions. The reviews were good on the first couple of attempts, but I wasn’t satisfied, so I continued to tweak the recipe. After this latest revision, I’ve finally reached a point where I feel they’re ready to be unleashed, and you know what? They’re pretty awesome.
Semisweet chocolate probably sounds like a pretty tame starting point, but it’s only part of the equation.
Peanut butter is also part of said equation, but no, that’s not terribly weird, either. Reese’s has sworn by that combination for years, so I couldn’t possibly stop there. That wouldn’t be any fun. After making things a bit more interesting, this was the result:
Your eyes do not deceive you. There’s bacon in them thar cookies.
I don’t have a fancy name for them, but I do have a recipe, for those who want to experience the wonder for themselves. Here is my gift to you, dear Internet!
Peanut-Butter Chocolate-Chip Bacon Cookies
6-8oz bacon
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
4 Tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 egg
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1. Pre-heat oven to 325F. Cook the bacon in a pan until crispy. (yes, I insist upon crispy bacon. Texture is everything, y’all.) Reserve 4 Tbsp of the bacon grease and set aside, and chop the cooked bacon into small pieces.
2. Cream together the peanut butter, sugars, bacon grease, unsalted butter, and maple syrup, and then beat in the egg.
3. Sift together the remaining 4 ingredients, and then add the peanut butter mixture to the dry ingredients, and mix thoroughly. Add the chopped bacon and chocolate chips, and mix until thoroughly distributed.
4. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto a cookie sheet, and bake for 12-13 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow cookies to cool on a cooling rack, if you can restrain yourself from eating them for that long.
The cookies don’t spread terribly much, and they’re crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. I also recommend using crunchy peanut butter, or the kind you grind yourself at the store–New Seasons has a machine filled with peanuts that it’ll grind into peanut butter in whatever amount you want. Again, texture is everything.
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