monster chocolate chip cookies with candied bacon

Don't let the title fool you. I've never not wanted bacon in something so much as this cookie.

Remember when I casually mentioned I was thinking about making cookies with bacon in them for Idle Husband's office? Well, I just couldn't get that idea out of my mind. I couldn't. Everyone was having fun candying bacon except me and I was, quite frankly, tired of it.

So I sprinkled some brown sugar on bacon and let it cook away in the toaster oven (on toast) for a good 10 minutes. The result looked fantastic. The bacon was a beautiful, bacony shade of red, shiny and sticky, and it smelled fantastic.

Without even tasting a bit, I chopped the whole lot up and mixed it into my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe.

I'm never one to complain, especially about bacon, but I really wish I just hadn't. These cookies are so good! But when you happen to bite into a bacon bit, you have to chew and chew and chew. It's exactly like chomping on leather bits.

And the upside (one would hope) would be the salty/sweet taste the bacon would lend to the cookie. No to that, too. There is no discernable taste of bacon. No salty. No salty/sweet. Nothing to really make you think like you were eating something that went beyond basic chocolate chips. In fact, Idle Husband had to dig out a piece in order to discover that yes, that is a bacon bit. And yes, it does taste mildly of sweetened bacon.

Possible remedies could include shortening the bacon's cooking time for a softer chewier feel or cooking the bacon longer, hoping for a crispier texture. I also think it would have been better not to bother with the brown sugar in the first place. Regular bacon bits probably would have been much tastier.

The only saving grace is the cookie itself. Astonishingly, I think they taste better monster sized. They're softer, more interesting, more chocolatey, more filling. I wonder if it's because of the bacon or the size (answer: the bacon) that's behind us not polishing them off within two days.

adapted from here

makes about 22 monster-sized cookies

{dry ingredients}

2 cups whole wheat flour

3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

{wet ingredients}

1 cup butter or margarine

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup chocolate chips, chopped as finely as you can (you don't have to be anal about it)

2 cups chocolate chips

{optional}

1/4 cup or 5 slices of candied bacon, if you really want to go down that road

1 cup of nuts, any kind; Oh, to have had walnuts instead of bacon!

In a small bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients and set aside.

In a seperate bowl, cream the butter and sugars together. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well.

Add the dry ingredients in increments to the wet ingredients making sure each addition is incorporated.

Add all of the chocolate and stir well.

Scoop out about ice cream scoop sized balls of dough (I actually used an ice cream scoop). Flatten each ball into a fat disk with your hands (flatten enough to help with even baking). Bake at 375 for 12-13 minutes or until the cookies are golden (for smaller, regular sized cookies, bake for 6-8 minutes).

find these and more treats over at Sweet as Sugar Cookies