Some of you may instantly tune me out after reading the title, but I urge you to read on and perhaps try making these yourselves. They are quite tasty.
Some of you may remember the review I posted a little while ago about the chocolate bar with bacon that I tried. This has got me thinking about other ways bacon can be combined with foods that aren't traditionally combined with bacon.
I have a recipe saved that I want to try someday that involves putting bacon in chocolate chip cookies, but I didn't feel like going to that much work yet. At work one day, I was eating no-bake cookies and talking about bacon with a coworker. She suggested that I try adding bacon to my no-bakes, and my life has changed forever.
I tried it in the next couple of days, and ended up with a very tasty result, but a little light on the bacon. Also, I didn't reduce the quantity of oatmeal in the cookies, so they were rather crumbly. I let several people try this concoction, and they thought it was rather tasty. Some of them didn't realize there was bacon in them, so I had to step up my game.
It seems that the best bacony bits where the pieces that had chewy, meaty bacon pieces as they held up better than the softer, fatty pieces, so I focused more on the meaty portions for the next batch. I also measured the bacon and used what I think is a higher quantity than last time, although I may go with more in the future.
These turned out better and are much less crumbly because I reduced the oatmeal quantity by the amount of bacon I added. The recipe is exactly the same as a traditional no-bake recipe except for the addition of bacon.
This last batch used between 1/2 and 2/3 cup of bacon, so you can use that as your starting point. You definitely don't want to go any lower than 1/2 cup. The oats + bacon should equal about three cups. Here's the recipe:
In a saucepan, combine sugar, cocoa, butter, milk, and salt and bring to a rapid boil for 1 minute. Add quick cooking oats, bacon, peanut butter, and vanilla and mix well. Working quickly, drop by teaspoonfuls onto waxed paper and let cool.
And that's all there is to it. I usually use a larger spoon and come up with larger cookies. The recipe says it will make 48 cookies, but I came out with more like 30.
Is it the bacon flavor that you like? the salt? the combination of the sweet and the salt? Have you tried the “bacon bits” for salads in the cookies? They would be firmer or crisper.
Karen has come up with some unusual combinations of candy flavors in her chocolates.
It’s the combination of the sweet and the bacon. Not just salty, but actual bacon. I don’t think bacon bits would work quite the same, especially since they’re much smaller and don’t really have that bacon flavor.
I like the way it’s primarily sweet, but then you hit the bacon chunks. So it’s not a blended flavor, but two distinct flavors that stand on their own. The fact that the bacon chunks are bit chewy enhances the experience by making that bacon flavor linger a bit.
I’m not really doing that anymore. Less than I used to, but not exclusively cut out.
