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bacon chocolate chip cookies and candied bacon

bacon choc chip cookies 3

i have a (possibly  irrational) fear that the bacon trend may be waning. with the advent of bacon salt, bacolicio.us and any number of bacon blogs, a once underground community of bacon lovers is on the verge of going mainstream. just last week, the new york times published an article on the bacon explosion, a giant roll of bacon wrapped in sausage wrapped yet again in bacon. the times even recognized the absurdity of publishing the bacon explosion piece alongside another article about nyc’s war on salt.

bacon and brown sugar

this leaves me a little worried that the bacon overload could go the way of pirates, ninjas, robots, monkeys and zombies, concepts that have just been driven into the ground, particularly by the internet masses. i’m holding that  bacon stays timeless and untouchable, which explains why i decided to make a recipe that combined candied bacon with chocolate chip cookies.

candied bacon 3

enough about my bacon fears, let’s get to the recipe. i was inspired to make candied bacon by david lebovitz, who combined it with ice cream. i also found several recipes for bacon chocolate chip cookies, but they used ordinary bacon. i wanted to take the decadence of candied bacon and insert it into the sweetness of a cookie. dare i? i dared.

bacon chocolate chip cookie dough

the candied bacon by itself was overwhelmingly delicious, so much so that i could only eat a bite at a time without my taste buds exploding with joy. i chopped up the bacon into tiny pieces and mixed it in with ordinary chocolate chip cookie batter (the tollhouse recipe of course). before i put them in the oven, i worried that the bacon would overtake the taste of the cookie and simply be too much to handle. luckily, i was completely wrong.

candied bacon 4

in fact, what results is a very subtle bacon flavor that teams up with the chocolate chips to elevate the cookies – sweet and salty never disappoints. you might want to canvas your friends before making a full batch of these though. no matter how i explained the process, i got the same incredulous looks from everyone i told and couldn’t get even one person to try a single cookie. apparently, candied meat cookies are still ahead of their time, which means i have some work to do. maybe this bacon trend isn’t on its way out quite yet.

bacon choc chip cookies 4

bacon chocolate chip cookies and candied bacon

candied bacon
1 pckg thick cut bacon (about 10 strips)
brown sugar for sprinkling

chocolate chip cookies
2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
12 oz toll house semi-sweet chocolate morsels

1. make the candied bacon: preheat the oven to 350 F. lay bacon on a parchment covered baking sheet so they are not overlapping. sprinkle about 2 tsp brown sugar evenly on each strip of bacon. bake for 12 minutes, remove from oven, flip bacon and drag it through the syrupy liquid that’s collected on the baking sheet. put the bacon back in the oven for another 12-15 minutes, until it is fully cooked and very dark (mahogany). remove the strips from the sheet and cool on a wire rack. after they have cooked, chop them or quickly food process into tiny pieces.

2. make the cookies: combine flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. beat butter, both sugars and vanilla in a large bowl. add eggs, one at a time, beating well. gradually beat in flour mixture. stir in morsels and bacon pieces.

3. spoon dough (about a Tbsp per cookie) onto an ungreased baking sheet and bake at 375 F for 9-11 minutes. i tend to go a little under 9 minutes so they come out just underdone. remove to cooling racks or eat immediately with a tall glass of cold milk.

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125 replies on “bacon chocolate chip cookies and candied bacon”

I’ve made the candied bacon before (we call it pig candy) but never chocolate chip cookies. Your error is telling your friends ahead of time! 🙂 When I heard about Velveeta fudge, I took it to my book club, waited until everyone ate it and raved about it before I disclosed the fact. Everyone wanted the recipe afterward! Chocolate chip cookies and bacon do not seem like a likely combination, either, but then I didn’t think peppered ice cream sounded good, but it is delicious! We need food pioneers like you to blaze the trail. Good going, Pete.

I have to say I love bacon and chocolate together!!! Ever try Moe’s Bacon Bar from Vosges? Yum! I can’t believe that your friends were so closed minded they wouldn’t try them. But hey! That just meant more for you!!!
As a nee bacon lover and avid baker, I am always searching for new ways to bake w/ bacon. I had a bacon maple cupcake a couple of months ago and have been trying to find a recipe to make them myself ever since. None of them have worked yet, but I have a bacon, egg and cheese scone recipe that i am trying this weekend, so I am at least excited about that. I think I am going to make some candied bacon and try these cookies after… Thanks for the recipe!

Hi Pete! I just came across your blog and it’s great! Your recipes all look so good, and I’ll admit, I was a bit grossed out by the idea of putting bacon in chocolate chip cookies…but you may have just convinced me to try it. 🙂

omg. are you kidding? i would love to try this. granted about 2 years ago i would have looked at someone with utter confusion at the thought of bacon and chocolate, but now, i’m all for it.

this is actually a great valentine’s day recipe for guys. i’m definitely going to make it! my brothers will love these!

Never thought of the combo myself, but just proves my point that you can put bacon in anything and it will taste delicious.

wow, amazing recipe and pics!! i can’t wait to try this. and like you, i am sad that the underground bacon movement seems to be coming above ground. just as long as the supplies don’t run out!! 🙂

I found baconsalt pretty disappointing. It tasted like ground-up bac-os instead of bacon.

And I’m making these this weekend. I needs me some sweet bacony chocolatey goodness.

Bacon will always be timeless! Have you tried Mo’s Bacon Bar by Vosges? The Vosges bar plus these cookies will be perfect for my proposed bacon appreciation party.

Thrilled to have found your site!!!!!!!!!!!! You are now part of my ‘favorite’ places.
Thank you for sharing your talents and tastes.
Joan

Pete,

The “candied bacon” recipe is actually “Bubblin’ Brown Sugar Bacon” which was in the book “Plain Jane’s Thrill of Very Fattening Foods Cookbook” by Linda Sunshine (published 1984 and very hard to find). What a great idea to put it in cookies! By the way, if you can get your hands on that cookbook, go for it–lots of great baking recipes that are LOADED with fat, salt and sugar.

I was talking to my friends about how bacon is all over everything nowadays and got the same exact, disgusted reaction! I think you should serve your cookies at a party and not tell them that there’s bacon in it 🙂

yum, sounds delicious. I went to Cowboy Ciao in Scottsdale, AZ that had some kind of similar cookie that I forgot to order after an epic dinner, much to my great regret… Thanks for the second chance!

Vosges sell chocolate bars with bacon bits in for $7.99 for 3 ounces. Here in UK they retail (when not out of stock!) for £6

£6 for a 75 gram bar? Knowing my love of bacon, and being a canny Lancashire Lass, my wife whizzed up a trial using supermarket “value” brand chocolate and BaconSalt (“the spice that makes everything taste like Bacon”). It’s amazing! The first batch was just 100grams, the second was 200 grams, and now we make it with 6 bars of chocolate at a time and fight over the last piece!

We’ve also experimented with dark chocolate and the “Peppered” flavour BaconSalt – that’s good too. And BaconSalt is sold in UK and Europe now at http://www.crazy4flavour.co.uk saving the cost and delay of postage from USA.

Pete, I’ve been enjoying your site for quite a while. Thanks. I’ve been making Glazed Bacon since I came across the recipe in the Los Angeles Times in an article by one of America’s most treasured chef’s, James Beard. He got it from a bed and breakfast in the Pennsylvania Dutch area of the U.S.

Glazed Bacon
350 F oven
Use thick sliced bacon and lay in strips on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Combine in a small bowl, 1 T. dijon mustard, 2 T. wine, either red or white will do, I prefer red for the heartiness, and 1/2 cup brown sugar. Bake till the bacon begins to brown then spoon on the top of each slice and cook for a while longer keeping an eye on it as it can burn quickly once it is sugared. Flip each slice over and spoon the remainder on top and bake approx. 5 to 7 minutes longer.
This is a great pot luck recipe to take and have people rave.

I just made these last night, thanks for the idea! They turned out pretty well I think, but the bacon taste was not as strong as I thought it would be. Like you I got a lot of raised eyebrows when I said I was going to make them, but most people were willing to give it a try. Results so far have been good! Thanks again!

Haha just last week I was in class when telling a friend that I had made ice cream, and he told me that his old roommate made bacon ice cream once. He just used the bacon fat in it, but people thought it was just plain vanilla. I have to say that I thought it was pretty unnatural and wrong.

Ref the Bacon Ice Cream – I’ve tried BaconSalt (“Bacon Salt” in a Vanilla Ice Cream and it’s good if you keep it to “a hint” Doesn’t work like that (for me anyway) with Choc Ice Cream though, as you have to have more BaconSalt to avoid the choc drowning the bacon.

Oddly, I’m totally addicted to our Bacon Salt version of “Bacon Chocolate Bar” (like “Mo’s Bacon Bar”). People at the local Food Fair seem to like the “tasters”, so we’re going to launch a trial sales on our web site this week!

These cookies rock!

The chocolate chip cookie is a great complement to the bacon. I wonder what bacon snickerdoodles or bacon pecan thumbprint cookies would taste like!?!

At this point i think you could put bacon in anything!

The possibilities abound!

Next week i think i’m going to try the cornbread.

Hey Pete—I had seen these cookies before, but I finally just tried them. I thought they were pretty darn good, I only used about about half of the bacon, but that was just enough to give it flavor. (Although, I moght put more in it next time)
Thanks for the great recipe!!

Just tried the recipe. Wow! It is some good stuff. I ran out of brown sugar, only had 1/2 cup. I just put in almost a cup of white and some good old maple syrup.

This may sound strange, but these would be a good cookie for a diet. They are so rich I could only eat about 3 or 4. Normally I could polish off more cookies than I care to admit lol.

My daughter made these last week. They may be the best cookies I have ever had!!

I can’t think of two things I like more…bacon and cookies. I need to try this concept! I will use my own chocolate chip recipe, of course. Kudos, Pete!

I love the idea of candying the bacon! I do a chocolate chocolate-chip bacon cookie (recipe is up on my blog, but basically you could just sub a quarter of the flour in your recipe for cocoa powder), and will have to try the candying bit next time. Yay, thank you for sharing this!

I just made these cookies.. Mind you, I’ve never baked a day in my entire life and they turned out great! I threw in some peanut butter chips in addition to the chocolate. So good!

We love brown sugar bacon, and last week I added some wasabi to the brown sugar, mushed it together, and then put it on the bacon…it was fantastic.

I wouldn’t try wasabi glazed bacon in the cookies…..but I am definitely trying the cookies!

this looks interesting. i’ve toying with ice cream flavors and have been planning on making a chocolate bacon batch. i’m intrigued by the cookies. love the ingenuity, you’ve got a great blog.
thanks

OMG! you were so right about the candied bacon being soooo gooood! I kept a strip for myself and put the other 9 into the cookie batter. Perhaps that was self serving and wrong, but it tasted so right.

Thanks for the recipe. They came out great!
Im giving them out at the opening reception of the art exhibit: The Bacon Show: http://meatartists.blogspot.com/2009/10/bacon-show.html

Pete! I don’t know you, but this recipe blew my mind! I was compelled to make this entire thing and on a Saturday night, even. This recipe is definitely a keeper.

Just wanted to share my experience: I made these for a Thanksgiving party and my friends (20 to 21 yo) al loved them! Except for the 1 Kosher and 1 vegetarian friend.
(secretly, the Jewish friend was picking the bacon out and eating the cookies anyways!)

surprisingly, my “right-off-the-boat” japanese grandmother is dying to try one! Guess I have a second batch to make huh?
Thanks for the recipie!

made these cookies for a holiday cookie exchange party i hosted last night. we were fighting over the batter before the cookies went into the oven (the bacon/sweetness ratio is *perfect* in the raw dough). however, we felt the final baked cookie could have used more bacon. delicious cookies, though. i will definitely be making them again!

Mmmmm. I am about to start making these. Will let you know what everyone (atleast those willing to eat them) think!!

I just made some for a company Christmas party I’m going to later tonight. They’re delicious! I told one of my friends about it and she suggested Bacon and Butterscotch cookies. Could you imagine? Bacon and Butterscotch?!? Anyway, thanks for the recipe!

[…] Crispy deep-fried bacon Bacon Explosion: BBQ smoked bacon-wrapped-in-sausage-wrapped-in-bacon Bacon chocolate chip cookies with candied bacon (tip: substitute bacon fat for the […]

Just made your cookies. Delish! I had to turn it down the temp on the oven a bit because I didn’t use insulated cookie sheets but other than that, they were perfect! The salty sweet combo is irresistible!

Word to the wise- use a cookie sheet with a lip on the edge to cook the bacon. Otherwise the melted sugar/fat will run off, burn on the bottom of the oven, and fill the house with smoke. I speak from experience.
But the cookies still turned out wonderful!

My son had these at a restaurant in Chicago, and wanted me to try & make them…so I did…amazing!
But I added my own little touch…2 cups of oatmeal, (because I love oatmeal chocolate chip cookies) and
VOILA !!! Breakfast of Champions..what a way to have your bacon & oatmeal!!

I did make these for a friend who wanted them. Let me tell you they were a hit. Someone even tried to steal them!

I made these last night.. and it was underwhelming. I guess I should preface this by saying that I only made a half batch and I used regular bacon instead of the thick cut, but I did measure our a half pound worth. The candied bacon tasted ridiculously delicious. As for the cookie, I couldn’t really taste the bacon. The bacon flavor was lost in the sweetness of the cookie/choco chips. I fished out a piece bacon from the cookie and I couldn’t really tell that it had been candied before I threw it in. Does the thick cut bacon really make that much of a difference? Maybe I should have cut them up into bigger chunks. They were about the same width as the chocolate chips. I was hoping to make this cookie as part of my wedding cookie bar, but now I’m not so sure. =(

I just have to say, that I jokingly told a friend that I would mail her chocolate chip and bacon cookies (she’s moving to Turkey next month 🙁 ), and I googled such cookies – imagine my delight to find your recipe! I’m going to test them out over Memorial Day weekend – thank you very much for all your research!

Remember that you’d be posting MEAT unrefridgerated! Probably not a wise idea.

A safer alternative would be to make your choc and bacon cookies using BaconSalt. That way, you have the taste of bacon, but with much better keeping properties.

(In fact, you should keep meat-filled cookies in the fridge until eating anyway – assuming they are gonna be around for long!)

In USA – baconsalt.com
In Europe – crazy4flavour.co.uk

Stu
(Bacontrapreneur)
Merseyside,
England,

made habanero spiced candied bacon and thought to try it in chocolate chip cookies. found your recipe before I started. candied habanero bacon and chocolate…

yum

Ah, Stu, you’re right 🙁 I never even thought of that. Bacon salt it is, then! Thank you for the suggestion! In that instance, then, would you only replace the 1 tsp of salt with bacon salt? I would be concerned about the cookies coming out too saltily… What do you think?

Hi Caitlin,

You could replace SOME of the salt with BaconSalt – BaconSalt contains roughly one third of the sodiium of ‘regular’ salt.

Perhaps use half a teaspoon of table salt instead of a full one.

Let us know what you think!

Stu

I made these for Father’s Day! They are good, but it seems like the candied bacon is more delicious on its own. Some of the sweetness disappears when you put the bacon in the cookie and it seems like you wasted the time candy-ing it.

Thanks for the recipe! It was a lot of fun to try and my Dad and my husband really enjoyed the cookies!

I JUST MADE THESE
and let me tell you, cutting up the candied bacon and NOT eating it was pure torture.

though my one issue is that 11oz of chocolate was too much. and i KNOW, “too much chocolate” sounds like something horrible, but i literally could not get the cookies to stick together.

other than that. good god.

I made these last year and they were amazing. People who thought they wouldn’t like them came back for more.
It was a beautiful blend of sweet and salty and the bacon taste was not overwhelming.

inspired…so inspired by bacon choc. chip cookies….after all, when you have pancakes or waffles, the sweetness of them is enhanced by the bacon, right??? I think I’ll try the sugared bacon crumbled on top of my Dad’s shortbread recipe next….Oh, and in true ‘trailer-trash’ mode, pitted dates, wrapped in bacon, pan fried and served with a small cup of sour cream…..slap -yer-granny good. I only use half a strip of bacon, I fry it til it’s sorta cooked but still limp, wrap it around the date then fry it the rest of the way.

I just finished making these. I used cook’s illustrated chocolate chip recipe and combined it with your candied bacon. It was a little piece of heaven. My boyfriend and I just stared at each other chewing, both speechless at how good they were. The salty, sweet, caramel dance in your mouth, YUM! Let me wrap this up so I can get another one. Thank you for taking the time to share this recipe. This recipe is staying with me for life, I will bring it to every office party, baby shower and cookout and I’m definitely NOT sharing this recipe with anyone 😡

I went on a Google rampage looking for chocolate chip cookies with bacon recipes. I knew it would be a great combo. Yay!!! So glad to have found it.

These look great! Definitely making them 🙂
But I have one concern; would candying the bacon make it too sweet? I mean, the cookie itself is going to be very sweet, and the chocolate chips are going to be sweet… shouldn’t I just put in plain old bacon to make sure it keeps a nice, salty taste instead of candying it o.0 Just seems like too much sugar but I’ve never had candied bacon so I could easily be wrong!

i thought the same thing, but no…follow the recipe as it is. the bacon flavor is still so strong that making it candied is definitely a great idea for the cookie.

i made these for my husband, a bacon fanatic, as a fun idea for father’s day thinking they would turn out kind of gross, sorry. but i was wrong, they were FANTASTIC! you can only eat one though, sooooo rich. really a fun novelty but delicious cookie, thanks for the post.

We just made your cookies tonight. I’m not sure they turned out right. They rose too much and had kind of a spongy cake texture rather than the crispy gooey flatness I expect from a cookie. Is this a symptom of too much baking soda?

(I am at a normal altitude)

Don’t get me wrong… but this is just too much…I mean c’mon… chocolate, butter, sugar and bacon??? I’m sure is delicious, I’ve seen your other recipes and they made me drool… but there are limits and this thing is able to make you both hypertensive and diabetic with just one bite… and yes I’m the kind of sissy that changes good foods to make them more healthy… so sue me!!!

I make these with turkey bacon so I can actually eat them, haha! I’ve used this recipe a few times and they always come out awesome. Last year my brother even specifically asked me to make them for his birthday.

Pete,
made these this weekend and they are AMAZING! one question though .. once baked do these cookies need to be refrigerated because of the meat in them or are they ok to put in a cookie jar or ziploc bag until eaten ? thanks for sharing the recipe!

So I am baking these right now, and I am having trouble. 🙁 MY cookies are coming out flat and wrinkley. I followed the directions to a T! The edges are thin and overcooked compared to the super flat middle where the cookies are. I am adding more flour as I bake a batch and see how they turn out (and a hint of baking soda here and there). They are getting better each time, but at this rate I might only have one perfect batch XP

HOWEVER, they do taste amazing. I am enjoying my super flat cookies :3

Just made these for a holiday cookie party and they are FABULOUS! It was the first time I had made the candied bacon, and it was quite a fun experiment. Thanks so much for posting this! 🙂

I loved these cookies and got great comments on how fluffy they came out. I added the fat from the sheet i cooked the bacon with and it came out so amazing

Pete,

Check out this video of how CookItFor.Us brought together a family in Huntley, IL. and Nagaoka, Japan, over these Christmas Cookies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIaH4-GAsuk

And for those interested in trying them out, without having to cook, check out our Baker’s Box at http://Cookies.CookItFor.Us

Would love to chat to you about adding a Crave! button to recipes on your blog (see http://www.agiltnutmeg.com for an example). You can register at http://www.affiliates.cookitfor.us

Best,

Moshe Tamssot
Founder & CEO, CookItFor.Us

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