The idea for these bacon cookies started as a Valentine’s idea. Even though I’m baking almost constantly, Zach rarely gets excited about what I’m making. He’s just not much of a desserts person and unless he smells bacon sizzling on the stovetop he doesn’t often come around asking for samples. So I thought I’d invent this recipe as sort of a love letter to him for Valentine’s Day and I married together one of my favorite cookie bases (my brown butter chocolate chip cookies, though the add-ins would be excellent with my worst chocolate chip cookies, too) with his favorite thing in the world: bacon. I tripped over him in the kitchen not long after he heard the bacon sizzling and, even though I’d kept the bacon flavor to a minimum to keep it from overwhelming the other (incredible) flavors, after one bite he told me that if we weren’t already married he’d propose to me right then and there. He’s asked me to make them three times since then and we’ve just been referring to them as the “Marry Me” cookies. And while I can’t guarantee you’ll also receive a marriage proposal (belated or not), after careful analysis I believe this recipe is at least 85% likely to procure you one. I mean, just look at it. If you follow me on Instagram you already got a sneak peek at these cookies and in fact, I’m only even publishing the recipe today because so many of you asked me to share. Let’s get to it!
What You Need
The base recipe is essentially a chocolate chip cookie base (a really, really good one) with a few over-the-top add-ins. Let’s discuss just a few of the key ingredients:
Butter. We’re browning the butter for best flavor (more on that below). NOTE: I also tried a few variations of this recipe where I substituted a small amount of the butter with bacon grease but Zach and I were both shockingly underwhelmed by the results.Flour. You’ll use all-purpose flour. As with all of my recipes you want to measure the flour accurately, but it’s especially critical with this recipe as it’s already prone to being stiff and slightly crumbly and accidentally using more flour than called for can make the dough too crumbly to work with.Bacon. Use real bacon you’ve cooked to crisp yourself! What I love about this recipe is that the bacon flavor is present without being overwhelming. I use ½ cup of crumbled bacon, but feel free to up this to ⅔ cup or even a bit more if you really want a lot of bacon flavor.Caramel. You may use caramel baking bits or, if you can’t find them, just buy classic soft caramels and use a sharp knife to cut them into small pieces (which is what I did).Chocolate. You could use a scant cup of chocolate chips, but I prefer to finely chop a quality chocolate bar. The easiest way to do this is to use a large sharp knife and go over the chocolate bar in a mincing motion just as if you were mincing garlic. It makes for a melty chocolate experience in every bite.
Remember, this is just an overview of some of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
Why Brown Butter?
Browning your butter is one of the absolute best thing you can do for most of your baked goods. If you’ve never done it before I recommend checking out my post on how to brown butter before beginning, though I do briefly walk through the (easy) steps in the recipe card. Essentially you’re cooking out much of the water and browning the milk solids that remain. This gives the butter (and in turn the cookies) a rich and deep flavor. The butter will need to cool to room temperature before you can add your sugar to make your cookie dough. Use this cooling period to cook your bacon!
How to Make Bacon Cookies
More Recipes You Might Like
Ultimate Chocolate CookiesOatmeal CookiesChocolate Chip Cookie BarsNutella Stuffed Cookies
Enjoy! Let’s bake together! Make sure to check out the how-to VIDEO in the recipe card! *I don’t need to disclaim that this is tongue-in-cheek and meant to imply that these are incredible cookies, right? Right.
