#13 Baking!

Wow! It's been 3 years already since my hubby and I got married and to celebrate each year, we head out for a fancy pants dinner.  This year, considering that I'm not working and S just started a new job, we decided to use our Christmas present from my sister-in-law to good use!  She and her other half gave us a experience certificate for a dinner for two at various restaurants around.  Offered through Samba Days, we had a couple nice places to choose from and decided to head to The Wine Bar downtown.  Ooooh man! It was fantastic! Never mind about the free steak plate we got because the food runner brought it to the wrong table, the rest was amazing too.  Being a tapas style restaurant, we shared 4 plates but ordered separate desserts. (Who are they kidding? How does one share a peanut butter crème brûlée?)  S ordered a warm chocolate chip caramel bacon cookie! HOLY MOLY it was amazing.  That brings me to today's entry:

I LOVE BAKING!  Never seem to get around to it enough, but I LOVE IT.

Today I decided to create some chocolate chip bacon cookies. With a little help from Anna Olsen, who I happened to catch on the Food Network earlier in the week, I had to try a couple things:  
1) adding bacon to my cookies 
2) adding corn starch.  She explained in her show that she adds the corn starch to create a crunchy outer and soft inner to the cookie.

So, with my goals for my baking session in place, and the butter softened, I embarked on an afternoon of baking and cooking that would see me create:
1) Frozen Greek Yogurt buttons (Thank you Pintrest)
2) Roasted Red Pepper alfredo
3) French Vanilla cupcakes for tomorrow
4) the most amazing Chocolate Chip Bacon cookies EVER!

After posting a pic on my FB timeline, I've had some people already ask for the recipe.  Here we go:

Ingredients
Chocolate Chip Cookies
6-8 stripes of bacon, more if you like to snack. I used maple bacon, but any kind would do.
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1/4 cup granulated white sugar
1 room temperature egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or experiment with a different kind for more adventure!)
2 cups all purpose flour, sifted
2 teaspoons cornstarch (thanks to Anna Olsen for the idea!)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 oz or as many as you'd like,  bittersweet chocolate chips

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Dice bacon into bits and fry up on medium until cooked, but still chewy. Cool on paper towel to reduce grease.
3. Cream together butter and sugars until smooth. Scrape side of bowl occasionally.
4. Add egg and vanilla and blend in. Mix for about 3-4 mins or until its all blended.
5. Sift and stir in flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt.
6. Add in any bacon that you haven't eaten and as many chocolate chips as you'd like. If you want, you can also add chopped nuts, flax, cranberries, or anything that you want.
7. Roll up batter into 1 inch balls. Place on a tray lined with parchment paper and freeze for 15 minutes.
8. Once they've cooled take them out and arrange on another parchment lined cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Gently press balls to flatten a bit.
9. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown all around.

Let cool (slightly) on a wire rack and enjoy!

Now to pack some into my snack bag so that my mom can have some too. Have you seen my wetbags? If not, check them out here.