Bacon Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

My wife had a few minutes down time so she went online to find some weird cookie recipes for us to try. When she presented me with this one, my first response was negative. I have not liked any of the chocolate with bacon I have eaten. Why would bacon make cookies good?

I was pleasantly surprised with how tasty these are. The tastes meld well together and they are not very bacony for how much bacon and bacon fat they have in them. They have a good texture. The pinch of chipotle is just right. This is a good cookie.

Only bake as many as you want to eat today because I have never made a cookie that went over-the-hill so fast. You will not want to eat them the next day!

Here, unflattened, you can see the peanuts, chocolate chips and, if you look closely, little bits of bacon.

Here it is flattened.

Nice looking cookie!

Source:

Internet search

Yield:

24

Ingredients:

1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pinch of chipotle or ancho chile powder

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

5 strips bacon (1/3 pound)

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

½ cup creamy peanut butter

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup packed light brown sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup roughly chopped honey- roasted peanuts

1/3 cup bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, chile powder and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.

Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp, about 4 to 6 minutes per side.* Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the drippings and set aside to cool. Crumble the bacon, discarding any chewy bits.

Beat the butter and reserved bacon drippings in a large bowl with a mixer on medium-high speed until smooth, about 1 minute.

Beat in the peanut butter until combined, about 1 minute.

Beat in the sugars until creamy, about 4 minutes.

Add egg and vanilla. Beat until light and fluffy, about 2 more minutes.

Reduce the mixer speed to low. Add flour mixture in 2 additions. Mix just until combined, scraping down the bowl as needed.

Stir in peanuts and all but 2 tablespoons each of the chocolate chips and bacon.**

Form the dough into 12 balls and arrange 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Flatten with your fingers.*** (The cookies will not spread in the oven.) Press the reserved bacon and chocolate chips into tops.

Bake until golden, 12 to 14 minutes. Let the cookies cool 2 minutes on the baking sheets, then transfer to a rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Notes:

* Years ago, while helping cook at our church girls’ camp, I learned from Alex to bake bacon. Here is how to do it:

Heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Line a jelly roll pan with a sheet of baking parchment with the edges hanging over the pan.

Place bacon evenly on parchment.

Bake about ten minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and flip the strips of bacon.

Put back in the oven. Watch it closely and take it out when it is cooked the way you like it, usually about ten more minutes for me. I like my bacon cooked until it is not rubbery but is still chewy like meat. I think bacon cooked until                    crumbly tastes terrible. For these cookies, I cooked the bacon perfectly then cut it into very small pieced with a French chef knife. Delicious.

Best part: throw the paper away and put the pan back in the cupboard.

** I skipped this step and put all of the bacon and chips in the dough.

*** Rather than press with fingers, I used my buttered-and-sugared glass method: Butter the bottom of a glass then dip into sugar. Flatten the dough ball with bottom of glass until desired thickness. Redip the glass before pressing each next cookie.