The other day we received an email asking us to “primal-ize” a recipe for candied bacon chocolate chip cookies. Excited and ready for this challenge, we got right to work. For this recipe we used our grain free chocolate chip cookie recipe, and added in a delicious recipe for candied bacon. Let’s just say Bill made sure this treat didn’t last too long in the house.
Candied Bacon Ingredients:
- 5 slices nitrate free bacon
- 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
- Coconut palm sugar
Candied Bacon Process:
- Preheat oven to bake at 350.
- In a medium size mixing bowl, toss bacon in maple syrup.
- Lay bacon on a parchment lined baking sheet.
- Sprinkle bacon with coconut palm sugar.
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Remove bacon from oven and place strips on a cooling rack.
- Crumble candied bacon for cookie batter.
Cookie Ingredients:
- 3 cups Blanched Almond Flour
- 1/2 cup Palm Shortening (or unrefined Coconut Oil)
- 1/2 cup Pure Maple Syrup
- 2 Omega 3 Eggs
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 1/2 cups Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
Cookie Process:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- In a medium sized mixing bowl combine dry ingredients.
- In a small mixing bowl beat eggs, maple syrup, and vanilla extract with a hand mixer.
- Pour wet ingredients into dry and beat with hand mixer until combined.
- Add palm shortening into batter, and continue to blend until combined.
- Stir in chocolate chips and candied bacon.
- Drop balls of dough on parchment lined baking sheet, about a tablespoon in size.
- Bake cookies for 15 minutes at 350.
- Let cool and serve.
As always, enjoy!
I got to try this! but before I do…how would subbing coconut flour for the almond effect the recipe? Allergies….
all I have to say is…O—M—G!
I was wondering the same thing as Kitoi. Is there any way to make choco-chip cookies with coconut flour?
yum yum!! i just made these and they are DELISH!! My almond flour must not have been quite as fine as yours was, because mine look a little chunkier. The texture kind of gives them a coconut "crunch"! I LOVE them! Thank you for hooking me up with this healthy version! 🙂
@Kitoi and Anika- you can use our recipe for coconut chocolate chip cookies (it is a chocolate chip cookie recipe using coconut flour) and just add the candied bacon to that recipe. We found that coconut flour is better suited for cakes/muffins/bread type recipes, but the cookies will still be delicious!
@cari- so happy you enjoyed them!!
Amazing! Sweet, savory, and salty all in one!
They truly are a special treat. I (Bill) wasn't so sure about them, at first. I've had chocolate covered bacon and chocolate bars with bacon in them in years past – and they were so-so.
However (just like you said), these strike the perfect balance of sweet, savory and a little bit of saltiness. They are very, VERY good!
Oh man these were so good. I made them as a treat for my girlfriend, and shared some with the roommate. They both couldn't stop talking about how good they were!
I made these and brought them to work. Everyone loved them! They didn't look exactly like yours, but they are pretty darn tasty!
http://glutenaversion.blogspot.com/
Tried this recipe tonight and, eh, I'm not a fan. I'll preface my critique with the following: I used unrefined coconut oil, I have a gas oven, this is the first gluten/primal/perhaps paleo cookie I've made and I'm still excited to try other recipes on this website.
Short story is one more egg and good bacon from the start would've made this better.
Long story: Batch 1 – I made them slightly bigger than a tablespoon, but at 15 minutes they were over-baked. I'm using 6 slices of candied crappy bacon from Safeway, a mainstream grocery store. Batch 2 – I make them the right size and realize 10-12 minutes is more appropriate, but they still taste dry. Batch 3- I add half an egg to a quarter of the batter. It's too eggy, but it is more moist. Batch 4- I add the rest of the eggy batter to the original batter plus 3 or 4 slices of crumbled uncured Niman Ranch bacon. This time the cookies look a lot better and have the right amount of moisture. My roommate said the last batch was a lot better, but I was too sick of experimenting to really know how much better.
So I'd be interested in know if anyone else has used unrefined coconut oil with this recipe. I wonder how much better this recipe would be with palm shortening or maybe even the bacon fat itself instead of coconut oil.
I have a picture of my various batches here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32566172@N02/5467940594/
Oh, and on the later batches I did not candy the bacon. I found the cookie batter already too sugary and I found it hard to taste the bacon flavor.
@Avidly Av-it looks like your trouble is coming from the almond flour. Are you using blanched almond flour, or regular almond meal. This will make a big difference in the texture of the cookies. Almond meal is not as fine, and the result will be less of a classic cookie texture.
Also, our classic grain free cookie recipe (this recipe without the bacon) used unrefined coconut oil. We typically do all of our baking with unrefined coconut oil and it works perfectly, we only just switched to palm shortening because you get more for the cost and it saves the coconut oil for cooking real food. If you follow the recipe as stated, the cookies will turn out. Many others have had success. Don't try to change the egg or oil proportions, you will not get the right result.
Maybe next time try the classic cookie recipe until you have a better grasp on grain free cooking, and save the bacon just for eating. Nothing wrong with that! Grain free baking can take a little while to get the hang of, but you can do it. Good luck.
Thanks for the advice. I used Bob's Red Mill Blanched Almond Flour, but I did notice it wasn't that fine – do you recommend a certain brand? And, one other question: When you put the oil in and measure it, should it be solid or liquid?
@Avidly AV- The Bob's Red Mill should work just fine. You might want to double check your amounts though, I actually accidentally put a bit too much almond flour in one of our batches once and they came out more like biscuits, which would also make them burn faster. Nut's Online brand is another great brand of blanched almond flour that we recommend.
If you are using coconut oil, you will want to measure it out and then melt it down before adding it to the batter. You will want to add it last being that it will solidify from the other colder ingredients, like the egg and maple syrup. I would recommend combining the whole batter with a hand mixer, and then adding the coconut oil, then continue to blend, then stir in the chocolate chips and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet.
The other thing is that everyone's oven is different temperature wise, when you take into consideration the make, model, and year,so it's best to keep your eye on the cookies until you have the whole process down to a good system. We give a general cooking time and temp for what worked for our oven, but everyone's oven is different so you might have to tweak the time or the temp slightly. Good luck.
Okay… I've decided after drooling over your blog for the last hour. I'm coming to love with you.
Wonder if you could make bars out of this to save a little time?
@Cavewomancafe – OKAY! 🙂
@Cari – absolutely you could. We think they'd be killer, too. Great call on that. Sorry for the lagging response time – it's hard to keep up with all the comments sometimes!
I made these tonight, but only had 2 cups of almond flour and so added 1/2 a cup of coconut flour – it worked really well! Even my non-paleo-eating friends thought they were amazing!
Do you happen to have the nutrition info on these? Fat/Carbs/Protein/Fibre specifically?
When you are making the bacon, do you put all the maple syrup that was left in the mixing bowl? I didn't put the leftover maple syrup in and it took longer than 20 min. to cook. Also, I have tried these with melted butter and then refrigerated the dough and the cookies taste better and are crisper. I haven't tried the shortening, yet. I weigh the almond flour, which is equal to 100 gm for 1 cup. I use a mixture of almond flour and Trader's Joe's Almond Meal to save $ (3 cups=300gm). Very yummy choc. chip cookies!
Made these for a Christmas Party tonight with a ton of non-Paleo/Primal peeps in attendance, and they LOVED them. Everyone wants the recipe for their cookie swaps and Christmas cookies. I used the coconut oil and because I had to melt it to get it to mix in, I chilled the dough for like 5 minutes or so to help it firm up. Worked like a charm, they were amazing!
These taste amazing! I made them with sun “flour” because we have a nut allergy in our house. They are green though (inside). I’ve had that problem with other paleo baked goods. Do you know why that is and how I can fix it? My family loves the taste and they don’t care about the color but I couldn’t bring these to parties, etc. Can you help? Thank you!
This is happening because you are using sunflour. Anything combining sunflower seeds and baking soda will turn green due to a chemical reaction. If you add acid (lemon juice) to the recipe, it will activate the baking soda and not turn it green. -Kara
Made these cookies with the suggestions above of higher heat for bacon and pressing cookies down prior to baking. They are really fantastic. Our family also loves snicker-doodles so I made a mesh of this recipe with my snicker-doodle recipe…so I made maple bacon Snicker-Doodles and took them to a luncheon. They were a hit, so much so that there was grilled meat left on the platter but no cookies!! That blew my mind!! then my daughters asked if I could incorporate the candied bacon into my breakfast bar recipe. Holy smokes folks! what an amazing way to start the day with a little bullet proof coffee and a maple bacon breakfast bar!!! we are making it to lunch without grumbly tummies at all!! I will upload the recipe for the breakfast bars soon!
Happy eating!
Judi
That sounds great! So glad you loved them!
oops, commented twice! Duh!
: )
Judi