Bacon Cookies with Maple Glaze

Bacon.

Yes, bacon.

In a cookie. With maple syrup.

Because we can.

My hubby and I made these for the 4th of July BBQ we attended. Well, actually he forced me to make them. He'd made a version earlier in the week (yes, my very own hubby baked BY HIMSELF. And nothing burned down.), and it just didn't taste like bacon. Not enough bacon, we decided, and the dough was too sweet.

Enter, moi.

The recipe below is a mish-mash of a few different idea. The main cookie dough recipe is Jacques Torres', which appeared in the New York Times. Everything else is purely experimental, but turned out freakishly delicious.

The result is a fairly light cookie, not too sweet, with chunks of thick bacon throughout and a sprinkling of kosher salt on top. Drizzled with a maple glaze and finished with a garnish of fresh bacon crumbles.

This is baking at its finest, people.

Judging by people's skeptical looks when we revealed our bacon treats at the BBQ, my first thought was that we were going to be eating a LOT of cookies this week. No one seemed too keen on trying the meat cookies.

But then word spread like grease in a skillet (sorry, had to do that), and lo and behold, before the fireworks even started, all 47 cookies were gone.

And there were not 47 people at this BBQ. Some people had to have had 2 cookies. Some had 3. My friend Chris confessed to eating 5.

And no one's heard from him since.

Bacon Cookies with Maple Glaze

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 6 minutes
Difficulty: Easy-Intermediate
Servings: exactly 47 cookies

INGREDIENTS FOR COOKIES:

• 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons cake flour
• 1 2/3 cups bread flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons course salt (I used kosher)
• 2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter (I used salted)
• 1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups bacon bits (plus 2 extra strips to chop up for garnish)
• kosher salt, for sprinkling on cookies

INGREDIENTS FOR MAPLE GLAZE:

• pure maple syrup
• confectioners' sugar (approximately 1 1/2 cups, more or less)

Heat oven to 350º.

Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a small bowl, set aside.

Cream together butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in a large mixing bowl until very light in texture and color, about 5 minutes.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Gradually beat in flour mixture. Mix the flour in only until combined.

Spoon out dough onto nonstick cookie sheets (we made them small - about 1 heaping teaspoon of dough each) and sprinkle lightly with kosher salt. Bake for 6 minutes, longer if you're making larger cookies. Cool on wire racks before topping with maple glaze.

For maple glaze, it's not an exact science. It's not even science at all. Or exact. Just dump a good amount of confectioner's sugar into a medium size bowl and drizzle in enough pure maple syrup to where the the mixture drizzles easily off a spoon, but isn't too runny. We made ours pretty thick because I wanted it to set quickly, and it turned out wonderful.

Add a little cinnamon to the mixture if you'd like to give it a bit more flavor (I did. It was good.).