Brown Butter, Bacon & Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

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I am in love with chocolate chip cookies.  Some people say they're boring but give me a plate of still warm chocolate chip cookies and a glass of Cruze Farm milk, a good book and a comfy chair and I'm in my own personal Shangri-La.  Don't get me wrong - I'd never turn down a homemade cookie of any kind (although no walnuts please!) but chocolate chip cookies are the best of both my cravings.  You get the buttery, rich cookie bits, the melty, transcendent chocolate bits and both tastes in one bite if you so choose.  

As a kid, my Mom quickly learned that if any cookies were going to make it to whatever function she was bringing them to, she better make a triple batch and hide them well.  I could sniff out a chocolate chip cookie better than a bloodhound can find his man.  I'm still pretty good at it but I've found that extra minutes on my rowing machine are a far more effective deterrent than any hiding place my mom could ever come up with.

I've tried a lot of chocolate cookies in my day and I've eaten a lot of lousy ones.  One thing I hate is when a chocolate chip cookie has too much chocolate in it, so much so that it really ceases to be a chocolate chip cookie anymore. You want the contrast between the cookie and the chocolate part.  I also hate super crisp or chewy cookies.  The edges need to be crispy enough to spray crumbs everywhere when they shatter.  The inside needs to be soft - just on the done side.

A few months ago, Marcus and I discovered an amazing recipe in Cooks Illustrated.  I realize that brown butter is very trendy but I could care less.  If something tastes as good as brown butter, it's earned its trendiness fair and square and it's certainly a trend I'll keep following long after it's cool, just like my trusty Birks have made it past their heyday in my college years.  Combine that with just the texture I've been looking for and this is our go-to recipe for plain chocolate chip goodness.  I've made a couple of changes to it as far as the chocolate goes - I like to add a little grated milk chocolate to the batter.  I also add chunks of semisweet chocolate to the bittersweet chocolate chips in my cookie.  I like the flavor even better this way.

Bacon has also been getting a lot of attention lately, especially when used as an ingredient in something unusual, like a sweet or dessert.  I had heard about Mo's Bacon Bar long before I ran into it last week at our local Earthfare.  They had small sizes so I bought one and while I enjoyed it, it wasn't all that I had heard it was.  I could see the potential though.  I also have been swooning over this Bacon Caramels recipe at Not Without Salt. Since my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe has such strong caramel overtones and I knew the chocolate would compliment the bacon as well, I thought I'd tinker around with bacon in my chocolate chip cookie recipe.

The first thing I did was do some research and see what food bloggers were saying about their favorite chocolate chip cookie recipes.  I found a couple that looked promising so we made a batch of both recipes and then a batch of our favorite cookie dough.  We added minced bacon, chopped bacon, and a combination of minced and chopped bacon to some of each dough and baked a control cookie that had no bacon.  In each case, we thought our standard recipe was the best.  We also quickly decided that the chunks of bacon worked best and no noticeable additional flavor was added by including minced bacon.

Marcus and I brought three plates of chocolate chip cookies with bacon (and one plate with no bacon) to a party Friday night.  It was hilarious listening to people talk about them.  I think the most common refrain was "Holy %^$#!  There's bacon in those chocolate chip cookies!" After getting over the weirdness, they were quickly gobbled down.  At the end of the night, there weren't any of the bacon cookies left and only a few of the plain chocolate chip cookies were left.  The ones that got the most praise were the cookies that were made from the browned butter.  If the idea of bacon in your cookies freaks you out, just fry up a piece or two and add the bits to a few cookies and see if you like it.  I'm willing to bet you do.  And then you can run around like our friends on Friday night doing an imitation of this commercial:

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.

Click here for a printable recipe!

Comments

[Beth]

I think I just gained 2 lbs looking at this! But that's okay- that's why I work out every day. I know what I'll be making this weekend!

[Laura]

The first half of your post could have been written by me--well not the elegant just your style part :) but the I am so in love with chocolate chip cookies part. Have you tried that NY Times recipe? Was it too chewy for you? My one attempt at a CI ccc recipe BOMBED but I know now after consulting Shirley Corriher that it was probably due to what flour I used. Plus their basic blondie recipe is the best I have tried.

It would seem I like my ccc's thicker than you (funny how ccc-lovers are very passionate and opinionated about exactly what their favorite ccc should be like) but I have to try this nonetheless. First to try the browned butter and second to try the bacon. All those times I was cursing at disliking nuts and coconut and wishing I had something more interesting to put in my blondies, why did I never think of bacon? DUH! :)

[Laura]

PS Your actual instructions are hysterical.

[TNLocavore]

Thanks Beth! I agree - these are far from rabbit food but everyone who's tried them has loved them so far. And I spent extra time on my rowing machine yesterday to make up for them!

[TNLocavore]

Thanks Laura! Can you post the link for the NYT cookies? I'm always willing to sacrifice myself by trying a new cookie recipe - you know, for the greater good and all. :-P This CI recipe comes from a recent issue so maybe it's not the one you tried?

I bet Blondies with brown butter would be fantastic.

[Laura]

If you don't mind me sending you to my blog--where the recipe is posted AS IS, nothing adapted, because it is easier for me to find:

http://thespicedlife.blogspot.com/2008/07/move-over-bill-yosses-ive-got-new.html

Try them and let me know what you think. I love bakery style ccc's so I was VERY happy with them.

[Laura]

No the one I tried did not brown the butter--it was their chewy big bakery style recipe and mine turned out greasy. I am sure I used a flour with lower protein content which therefore absorbed less liquid leading to greasy cookies. The one thing I have learned from Shirley Corriher and the NY Times recipe is that most ccc's can be improved by letting the dough rest so the flour absorbs more moisture. That and try different flours when in doubt. I am sure it is why the NY Times recipe calls for a blend of bread and cake flour.

[Tangled Noodle]

Good gracious this looks and sounds delicious! I like your approach to burnt bacon and fused cookies: self-sacrifice is admirable (and deliciously rewarding!)

[TNLocavore]

I know - it's an admirable sacrifice, isn't it? ;-)

Laura - thanks for the link! I used Gold Medal unbleached for this recipe. You can make the cookies larger - the recipe I used suggested dividing the dough into 16 pieces and I got almost twice that number of cookies.

I've got the other recipe bookmarked. I'm a bit cookied out at the moment but I'm sure I'll get over that soon! :-P

[Scott]

I have already seen some food writers say that the bacon thing is "over", and that the new thing is

(wait for it)

hot dogs?

OK, I like hot dogs, but it is physiologically impossible for a hot dog to take you to the place that bacon can bring you.

I was under-whelmed by the bacon chocolate bar thing. With two things that good, there's a very high bar to clear if you're going to actually improve the experience. But I'll try this. The dilemma: I'm the only non-vegetarian in my family. Bake for myself or for a pot luck?

[TNLocavore]

Scott - I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the "hot dog" trend that I'm sure will soon be sweeping the nation. I mean think of the possibilities - brown butter & hot dog pudding or a delightful mustard & hot dog chutney? :-D

I think the chocolate bar would have been better with larger pieces of chocolate in it. I had just heard it spoken of with such awe that I was underwhelmed when I actually tried it.

If you bring them to a party, expect a lot of weirdness at first until people try them. My husband and I were cracking up listening to people discuss them. You can also always make the cookie dough and just add bacon a small portion for you. They're really good, even without the bacon.

[Kamran Siddiqi]

If you put brown butter, bacon, and chocolate chips in one sentence, you'll have me craving the stuff. Put it in a cookie however, you'll have me baking these everyday! I am definitely trying these as soon as possible! Great post! :)

[TNLocavore]

Thanks Kamran!

[Daniel]

You sir, are a brilliant man. Adding bacon to cookies, the greatest invention since the wheel!

[Unplanned Cooking]

This is so interesting... I'd never think to put bacon in a cookie, and can't come up with how it would taste... will have to try it...

[TNLocavore]

I know it sounds a bit weird but the bacon really does go well with the cookie! If you're nervous, you can just make the cookie recipe which is fantastic by itself and add a couple of pieces of bacon to a few cookies to try.

[sarah]

These look fabulous! I am sure my kids will love them. I have to laugh - I am a Penzey's Double Strength Vanillaholic as well. I don't drink it, but it goes quickly.
and the floury fingerprints...well, we may be twins, separated at birth.
Anyway, thanks for sharing this, I can't wait to try it now.

[TNLocavore]

Isn't it amazing stuff Sarah? Luckily, my Dad was back up in Milwaukee and he stopped by and picked some more up for me.

[Karen]

Thanks for the great recipe...though they were received with some skepticism, a coworker claimed they were "the best cookies he has ever had"...I am fairly certain I am bacon's biggest fan and these are definitely a keeper!

[TNLocavore]

I'm so glad you liked them Karen! I'm a pretty big fan of bacon myself!

[TNLocavore]

Susannah - ovens are notorious for either cooking hotter or colder than the temperature dial says it is. Your oven might run a little warm. If you try them again, cook a couple as a test run and cook them for 10 minutes and see how they turn out. And yes - putting the baking sheet on a wire rack helps the sheet to cool down quicker. The cookies should be crispy around the sides but still have some softness in the middle. I hope that helps!

[Kristin]

Your instructions ARE hysterical. I read a few out loud to my sis cause you made me laugh.