Bacon Fat Cookies

I store all of my bacon fat from my breakfasts (and other bacon-y meals) in a jar in my refrigerator. It takes me a while to render enough fat to make these cookies, but when I do, they are normally a hit.

To render bacon fat, and then store it, I cook a few strips of bacon for breakfast, and then pour off the fat into an old salsa jar. I know the jar holds about 2 cups, and so when the jar is a bit more than half full I know that there is enough in the jar to bake.


Here is the condensed recipe:

1 cup bacon fat
2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons sea salt
4 tablespoons molasses
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour

Preheat your oven to 350º F

Step 1: "Cream" the Bacon Fat

Add 1c. Bacon fat to 2 cup white sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 2 tsp salt, and 4 tbs molasses. In a stand mixer, mix on high for a few minutes.

Step 2: Add 2 Eggs

Ad 2 eggs and cream again. Your batter should form stiff peaks before you add spices and flour.

Step 3: Spice the Dough

Add the following to the mixture:

1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 tsp black pepper

Step 4: Add Flour

Add 2 1/2 cup flour, mix on high.

Step 5: Press/form

I had a cookie press so I decided to use that for these cookies - but as long as each cookie is about the size of a tablespoon they should be the right size. They flatten out while baking.

Step 6: Bake

Bake the cookies in a 350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes - you don't want the bottoms to get burnt.

Step 7: Serve

Great with milk, or ice cream. They are rich! This recipe yields many cookies, so bring them into work, or share with friends.

Comments

[Mr_Altitude]

Wow, how fattening are these? How do they taste?

[JamesW33]

I would imagine they are very fattening, but that's one of the reasons I want to make them, they're bad for you, and we all know bad things taste good!

[bluesquirrel]

Oh my goodness gracious, I have the BEST reason to buy bacon now; COOKIES. I wonder how these would be if you added the bacon the fat is rendered from, cooked crisp and crumbled into the batter.

[workislove]

Fascinating, I've been saving my bacon fat for various recipes - but there's always more of it going into the jar than coming out. I'm very curious what kind of taste this will lend to the cookie. I'm going to give it a try!

[Easily a-Mused]

Does the bacon fat leave a bacon taste in the cookies? I have about half a cup of saved bacon fat for use in other things ( I am not the bacon eater in the family, that'd be the boyfriend), but if they don't taste too much like fried pig parts, I might be inclined to try them.

[Wilmette]

This is a good reason to buy bacon, especially at recent prices.
Two comments aboyut cookie makingWe had not done much or had much success until two events: My daughter got a mixer as described here. And we got parchment paper. Alton Brown says that there is no comparison between this type of mixer and egg beaters. Egg beaters do not do the job; these do. These incorporate air,, fat and flour together infinitely better than hand or egg beaters. One of the reasons that , in the pre-electric past, good cakes and cookies were so special was that it took lots of time and skill to do the creaming step. Cooks and bakers had big arms for a reason. The other comment is that it makes clean up easier to use parchment paper.. Our daughter is more inclined to make cookies with these things now and we are more inclined to say OK.

[audreyobscura]

there is never a bad reason to buy bacon :)