Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

What? Bacon chocolate chip cookies? Yes, that's right. And they were delicious. I wasn't sure how I felt about this at first, but I've been seeing a lot of bacon and chocolate dessert recipes online lately and just had to try one. The cookie recipe itself was really good, I may have to use this as a basic chocolate cookie sometime! The mix of salty and sweet taste was just right, and the cookie was very buttery as well. I altered the recipe a bit - I used margarine instead of butter (usually a no-no in baking!). We only had one stick of unsalted butter left in the fridge and I was only making these for fun, so used the margarine instead. I also didn't add white chocolate chips and actually only did add about 1 cup of dark chocolate chips (not 1 1/2 since the white chocolate was omitted). I also used less bacon than was called for. I mixed in about 1 1/3 cups instead of 2 cups and it looked to be more than enough. And I didn't make the maple glaze, so I can't comment on that. Maybe bacon chocolate cupcakes will be next....?

Adapted from: http://www.creamandsugar.ca/


INGREDIENTS
1 cup butter, softened (I used margarine)
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2-1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups of cooked bacon broken into pieces (I used about 1 1/3 cups and it was plenty!)
1 cup dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup white chocolate chips (I omitted and used all dark chocolate)
5 strips of cooked bacon, cooled and cut into one inch strips (to top the cookies - I didn't do this)

GLAZE (I didn't make the glaze)
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp maple extract
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp water

DIRECTIONS
Heat oven to 375 degrees.
Combine flour, baking soda, and salt, and set aside. In a large bowl, cream butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla, until light and fluffy. Gradually stir flour mixture into creamed mixture.
Add both chocolate chips and cooked bacon bits. Mix to incorporate.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Using a cookie scoop or your hands, make approximately one inch balls.
Bake for a total of 9-10 minutes.
While the cookies bake, mix the Maple Cinnamon Glaze by combining the powdered sugar, maple extract, vanilla, and cinnamon, and mix together until smooth and creamy.
Once baked, move cookies to a cooling rack, add a small amount of glaze, and top with the reserved squares of crisp bacon.

The Ultimate Black Bottom Cupcake

I was looking through my blog and forgot to post this! I made these Black Bottom Cupcakes for Christmas and they were awesome. There are several recipes out there for this type of cupcake, but apparently this is the ultimate. I don't have another to compare it to, but I would definitely make this recipe again. I even had some left over batter and made a few mini-cupcakes. This way when they were finally cooled, I didn't have to eat an entire cupcake to do a taste test. However, I ate about 3 of the mini-cupcakes....hmm....

Adapted from: http://www.cookiemadness.net/

INGREDIENTS (Yields 18 cupcakes)

FILLING
16-oz cream cheese, cool room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 large egg whites, room temperature
2 tbsp sour cream, room temperature
1/3 cup miniature or regular size chocolate chips – or however many you want (I used regular sized chips, and it was more like 1/2 cup)

CAKE
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (7.9 oz)
3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder – Hershey’s Dark
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line 18 muffin cups with paper liners. Beat the cream cheese, sugar and salt until smooth. Add the egg whites and stir or beat on low speed just until mixed; stir in the sour cream and chocolate chips. Set aside.
Mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt together in a small bowl.
In the actual mixing bowl, beat together the oil and sugar. You can do this with a whisk, spoon or hand-held mixer.
Mix together the buttermilk and vanilla. Add the buttermilk/vanilla mixture and the flour alternately to the sugar/oil mixture. Stir until smooth – be careful not to overbeat.
Divide the chocolate batter evenly among the muffin tins. Spoon large tablespoonfuls of cream cheese batter over the chocolate batter. You should have some cream cheese batter leftover.
Bake on center rack for about 25 minutes. Let cool in cupcake pan for 30 minutes and then transfer to the refrigerator to chill.