Recipe #2 - Chocolate Chip Cookies &Recipe #2.5 - Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

This "family" chocolate chip cookie recipe beats any other chocolate chip cookie I've tried.  To me, it's no contest, simply the best chocolate chip cookie I know.

I say "family" because really it's the cookie recipe from Betty Crocker's Cooky Book, first published in 1950.  My mom always baked double batches and the numbers are so easy and even, my younger brother and I have had the recipe memorized for years.

While I'm choosing not to share the recipes in my mom's book (duh, you can buy one from her and get them all at once that way!), I will share this one because of my own spectacular addition - bacon.

My not-so-secret ingredient.

The Best-to-My-24-Year-Old-Knowledge Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 c. butter

1 c. sugar

1 c. brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs

3 c. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 12-oz. pkg. chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Combine butter, sugar, and brown sugar.  Mix well.  Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.  Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in separate bowl and stir together.  Add flour mixture into butter mixture mixing well.  Add chocolate chips and mix until evenly distributed.  Scoop into 1 inch balls.  Bake 8-10 minutes.

This recipe yields about 5 dozen cookies.  It's a whole heck of a lot, but they freeze brilliantly.  It could be argued that I even enjoy a half thawed cookie more than a warm-fresh-out-the-oven cookie.  But to each his own.

...and then there was bacon...

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I went to a birthday party where bakery treats more or less replaced a traditional birthday cake.  The host eagerly had us sample one of the cookies - a chocolate chip cookie with bacon pieces in it.  I don't know how much he paid for these cookies...but as soon as I tasted it I thought, "Psh.  I could make these.  And they'll probably be better."  I did.  And they were...in my humble opinion.

To make your very own Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies follow these easy instructions:

1. Go to your local grocery store and order meaty bacon from the meat counter.  You'll find most success with maple bacon or regular bacon - I'd stay away from peppered bacon.
2. You'll want about two strips of bacon per dozen...if you do the whole batch, I'd recommend 10 strips - but if you only do two dozen, then you'll only need four strips.
3. Cook it up before you start making the cookie dough...you want crispy bacon that has cooled. 
4. Chop it up into little bits and add it to the dough at the same time you add the chocolate chips.
5. Bake like you normally would.

Yummy bacon!!!

There are no pictures of the final cookie, the consumption rate was incredible (and I may have forgotten to take one when they were done baking).  What I tell people is if you like chocolate covered pretzels and aren't a vegetarian, then you'll most likely enjoy, perhaps love, the Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookie.