I love bacon and I love chocolate chip cookies. With this cookie, two of my favourite childhood treats are combined into one salty, chocolate-y cookie for the ultimate indulgence. If these cookies existed when I was a kid I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have eaten anything else.
As a child, I was one of those annoyingly picky eaters. There were very few items I’d actually get excited about. One was bacon. Whenever my mom cooked bacon (rarely) she only let me eat a maximum of two pieces. I could never get enough of that smoky, sweet-salty goodness.
Now that I’m an adult and I can eat bacon anytime I want, I don’t indulge as nearly as much as you’d think. However, I do randomly add bacon to almost anything. Bacon ice cream? Yes please! Bacon vodka? Bring it on. Chocolate chip cookies studded with crispy bacon bits? What could be better? These cookies turned out even more fantastic than I envisioned. Subtly salty with plenty of smokey bacon bits and dark chocolate, these cookies are the ultimate indulgence.
I am chocolate-y, I am baconized: I AM BACON CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE!
Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe adapted from nytimes.com
yield: 9 large cookies
- 1 3/4 cups flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter at room temperature
- 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate, chopped
- 8 slices of bacon, finely chopped then pan-fried until crispy and drained on paper towels
- sea salt
Sift the flour, baking soda and powder into a bowl and set aside. Cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the egg and mix well. Stir in the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Drop in the chocolate and bacon and incorporate. Refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Scoop 9 3 1/2 ounce mounds of dough (the size of large golf balls) onto the baking sheet leaving ample space between cookies. Sprinkle cookies with a touch of sea salt. Bake until golden brown but still soft, 18-20 minutes. Cool on sheet for 10 minutes then move to rack to cool until you are ready to enjoy!
35 Comments
Mary says:
March 8, 2012 at 7:08 pm
Nice site. I love the photography. I’ve actually had bacon brownies before. Not really my favorite. But I think the trick is to finely chop up the bacon like you did.
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Lea says:
March 9, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Hey there, I’m from Germany and a big fan of this blog, look how far you got ;D I really want to try these but I have kind of a stupid question: When you say the bacon has to be “cooked until crispy” do you really mean cooking? Because “cooking” for me is in a pot of water and I just can’t imagine putting the bacon in there? Or do I have to prepare it in a pan? Thanks for the help!!
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steph says:
March 9, 2012 at 5:28 pm
Hi Lea,
Pan-fry the sliced bacon in a small skillet over medium heat. It’ll take a little while, but all the bacon will crisp up then you can drain the pieces on paper towels to get rid of the excess oil. Hope this helps!
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Bryce says:
June 6, 2012 at 2:32 pm
She might be confused as to the type of bacon which is to be used, American bacon is generally quite different from the bacon encountered in the rest of the world.
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Steve says:
December 18, 2012 at 12:02 pm
No its not!!!!Diff we here in Germany have the same as America and more…
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Erica says:
March 18, 2012 at 2:34 am
Do you mean 1/2 cup sugar? The recipe looks amazing!
steph says:
March 18, 2012 at 6:35 am
Hi Erica,
Yes, it’s half a cup plus 1 tablespoon.
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Lisa says:
March 22, 2012 at 9:14 pm
Approximately how many oz. is 1/2 c of dark chocolate? Also is there a certain % cocoa that you recommend for this recipe?
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steph says:
March 22, 2012 at 9:41 pm
Hi Lisa,
1/2 cup of chocolate chips is about 3 ounces. For the chocolate, between 50-70% would be yummy. I don’t recommend anything darker than 70%.
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Brittny says:
March 28, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Is it absolutely necessary to refrigerate the batter for 24-36 hours? What would happen if I baked it right away? Thanks!
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steph says:
March 28, 2012 at 5:55 pm
Hi Brittny,
It’s not necessary, but it “cures” the dough, resulting in a richer cookie. It also helps with the cookie not spreading too much during baking. That being said, I’m pretty sure the cookies will taste just fine if you only refrigerate for an hour or bake right away.
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Joslyn says:
April 14, 2012 at 8:09 am
Do you have to refridgerate it?
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mary says:
May 1, 2012 at 6:43 pm
i just tried this last night. i liked the crunchy salty bacon and chocolate taste. definitely have to crisp the bacon really well. thanks for sharing!
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Steph says:
July 3, 2012 at 7:04 pm
Baked these! Love the sweet/salty combo. Add 1/4 tsp of salt to my batter and made it with all brown sugar and used cake flour instead of AP. Only refrigerated them for 5min – couldn’t wait. Baked for 10min and came out super chewy. Yummm. Thanks!
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July 17, 2012 at 10:02 am
I love adding bacon to desserts! People always think I’m crazy, but the salty/sweet/savory combo is amazing. Your cookies sound to die for!
I hope you’ll consider adding this post to the Chocolate Chip Cookie Challenge link-up. Learn more here: http://bit.ly/NOm7mT
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Jessica says:
August 28, 2012 at 11:25 am
why does the dough need to be refridgerated prior to baking? is it okay to bake right away?? (clearly, I do not want to wait 24-36 hours to bake and eat!!)
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Rav says:
November 28, 2012 at 8:30 pm
Made em. I liked these well enough to make once in a while. Not my favorites though.
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aris says:
December 5, 2012 at 10:13 am
hello! when you say 1 3/4 cups flour you mean 1 + 3/4 cups flour? or just 3/4 cups?
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Amanda Blain says:
December 18, 2012 at 11:50 am
Oh my.. i totally shared these out today… Will be making for the holidays.. Mmmm BACON!
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Gil says:
March 15, 2013 at 9:04 am
This. Is. F***king. Awesome.
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Spencer says:
July 8, 2013 at 11:31 pm
I have heard that the combination of chocolate and bacon is amazing but I haven’t tried it yet. These cookies seem like as good a place as any to start. Might have to try and recreate the recipe.
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Fatima Slade says:
August 9, 2013 at 6:53 am
I was reading the comments and someone had questioned why the batter needed to be chilled overnight, the inventor of the Chocolate Chip Cookie Ruth Graves Wakefield recommended such. I agree with you about curing the batter. When I bake Chocolate Chip Cookies, I do this:
1. Chill the batter overnight
2. Chill cookie sheets
3. Place cookie dough on chilled cookie sheet and bake
4. Place unused cookie dough back in the fridge while one sheet of cookies are baking. I only bake one sheet at a time.
The New York Times ran an article around 3 years ago about the science behind baking the best chocolate chip cookie.
In addition, the Sisters Cafe writes about it on their website (see link below). Although I have not attempted this recipe, (yet) I will do so hopefully soon when things slow down. I also wanted to let you know that I really enjoy reading your blog and I appreciate all you put into it and hope you never stop! :)http://www.thesisterscafe.com/2011/03/secrets-to-the-perfect-chocolate-chip-cookie
According to the article, Ruth Graves Wakefield, who invented the chocolate chip cookie for her Tollhouse Inn in the 1930s, wrote that the dough should be chilled overnightReply
Pat says:
December 9, 2013 at 7:29 am
Once baked, do the cookies have to be kept refrigerated because of the bacon. Can they just be kept in a cookie tin?
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Reggie says:
December 20, 2013 at 6:46 am
Is the dough suppose to be hard once you take it out of the fridge? I tripled the recipe and hopefully it came out right. I checked the dough this morning and it is quite hard.
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steph says:
December 21, 2013 at 7:43 pm
Hi Reggie,
It’s fine that the dough is hard right out of the fridge. Hope your cookies turned out wonderful!
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nikki says:
January 21, 2014 at 5:55 pm
hi i’m wondering if you think it would be okay to substitute coconut oil for butter?
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steph says:
January 21, 2014 at 6:16 pm
Hi,
I haven’t tried it myself, but I have heard that a 1:1 substitute would work. However, I’m not sure what it would do to the texture of the cookie. Let me know if you try it!Reply
Vickie says:
June 13, 2020 at 4:53 am
Pat already asked but wasn’t answered- Do these cookies need to be stored in the frig because they have bacon in them??
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Stephanie says:
June 14, 2020 at 1:01 pm
hi vickie,
we didn’t have them around long enough to worry about it, but if you’re going to keep them for more than a day or two i would put them in the fridge :)Reply
