Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

Brown Butter Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

(adapted from Cooks Illustrated)

1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
14 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon table salt
2 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
4 oz semisweet chocolate bar, diced into 1/4″ pieces
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (I like Ghirardelli 60% cacao)
3 tablespoons milk chocolate, grated
1 cup bacon that’s been fried until crispy and diced into roughly 1/4″ pieces

Put your oven rack in the middle and heat your oven to 375 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk 1 3/4 cups flour with 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. Set this aside. Try to do this like me and get as many floury fingerprints as you can all over your clothes.

Fry up a few pieces of bacon. You’ll get about a cup from roughly eight pieces of bacon but if you’re like me, you’ll cook a few pieces extra just in case some disappear like it always seems to happen to me. You want the bacon to be as crisp as possible without being burnt. If you can find good, real hickory smoked bacon, use this.

Burn a few pieces so that you HAVE to eat them so they don’t go to waste. Cut the bacon into roughly (and this is very roughly) 1/4″ pieces.

Heat 10 tablespoons of butter in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat until melted. Continue cooking until it turns a dark, golden brown and smells divine. Swirl this pan constantly and stir the bottom frequently for good measure. Watch this carefully! I’m not going to say how I know this but this goes from ready to burnt quicker than anything. As soon as it’s done, take off the heat and pour immediately into a heatproof bowl. Stir in remaining 4 tablespoons of butter so that they melt.

Put the butter in a large mixing bowl and add 1/2 cup sugar, 3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar, 1 teaspoon salt and 2 teaspoon vanilla. Lament the fact that you are now officially out of Penzey’s Double Strength Vanilla.

Dip a piece (or eight) of bacon into the mixture and eat. Because I said so.

Add egg and egg yolk and mix until mixture is fully incorporated. If you don’t have a mixer, use your whisk – it works just as well.

Let sugar/egg/butter mixture stand for a few minutes. Then whisk again for 30 seconds. Do this several times – you want to make sure that the sugar has “melted” into the liquid. When ready, mixture will be smooth, thick and shiny.

Chop your chocolate. Dust the cat hair off the few pieces that fall on the floor and eat.

Grate your milk chocolate

Using wooden spoon, stir in the flour mixture until just combined. Stir in grated chocolate, chocolate chunks and bacon pieces. Don’t over mix but make sure no flour pockets remain.

Using a teaspoon, place a heaping teaspoon of cookie dough on the baking sheet lined with parchment paper. I get about 14 cookies per baking sheet.

Bake for 10-14 minutes (my oven takes 11 minutes) until cookies are golden-brown and set along the edges but the middle is still soft. Remove from oven and set baking sheet on a wire rack and let cool for at least 10 minutes, keeping the cookies on the baking sheet. You see the two cookies fused together in the center. Those should be considered ruined and eaten so as not to expose anyone else to imperfect cookies.

TIP: I usually make a whole batch of cookie dough and freeze half of it. Just put it on a baking sheet like you’re going to bake it, stick it in the freezer for a few hours and put the frozen clumps in a freezer bag. I haven’t frozen the ones with bacon but I might leave that out and just stick a few pieces to the top when ready to bake. Take from the freezer, put on a baking sheet and add a few minutes to your normal baking time.