BACON..... It's what's for Dessert! Bacon Chocolate Chip Blondie Thingamajigs....

January 31st is BACON DAY...at least in my neck of the office cube farm

In one aisle of cubicles, where I work, January 31st has become BACON DAY.  A very good friend and co-worker's birthday is this day and bacon is one of his favorite foods. So over the past couple of years it's kind of become a fun little thing to get John bacon themed items. Bacon memes were emailed, and the scent of bacon was in the air.  Last year he received chocolate covered bacon, and this year a Bacon Chocolate Covered Twinkie....YES, it's a real thing! (http://www.baconaddicts.com/products/bacon-chocolate-covered-twinkie-twinkies).  The chocolate covered bacon was strange, but interesting and oddly tasty, so as I was thinking of something I could do with a bacon theme, I decided to try a dessert.

I was going to just do a Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe, there are tons out there, but John is the King of Chocolate Chip Cookies at work, so I didn't want to directly tackle cookies.  He claims he just uses Phoebe Buffay's Grandmother's recipe... (the one off the back off the Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chips for those non- "Friends" watchers,) but I swear he has some secret ingredient or technique.  Mine come out a little flat, his are always perfect and plump AWESOMENESS.  Anywhooo, back on topic, I decided to try something else, I contemplated Bacon Brownies, but then decided I wanted something a little different, more like a Blondie or a Cookie Brownie.  I pretty much just found some decent recipes, and added candied bacon.  Overall, they didn't come out too bad, it was like a thick delicious cookie with an odd bacony element.  A little bit funky, but still pretty tasty! As a novelty dessert for a Bacon Lover, I think they did trick! (And the leftover candied bacon was delicious all by itself too!)

The Lazy Diva's Bacon Chocolate Chip Blondie Cookie Brownie Thingamajigs

Ingredients:

2 3/4 Brown Sugar (2 cups for the Bacon - 3/4 cup for the main recipe)
2 cups Flour
1/2 Package of Bacon
2 Cups Chocolate Chips
3/4 cup Butter
1/4 cup White Sugar
1 Egg
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tsp Baking Soda

STEP ONE:

CANDIED BACON

Preheat Oven to 400 degrees

1) Add 2 cups of Brown Sugar to a ziploc bag, add a couple of pieces of bacon at a time and toss to coat the bacon.

2) Use an upside down broiler pan, on top of a cookie sheet with sides, (or come up with another way to drain the fat as it cooks).  Place the sugar coated bacon on the pan.

3) Bake for 20 minutes.  

4) Take out of the oven, let it cool, then cut into small pieces.

STEP TWO:

THE BATTER

Preheat Oven to 350 degrees

1) Combine soft butter, (3/4 cup) Brown Sugar, White Sugar, Egg, and Vanilla Extract in a bowl and mix well.

2) Slowly add Flour and Baking soda to the bowl, and mix well.

3) Add Chocolate Chips and Candied Bacon to the bowl, and mix well.  Refrigerate the mixture at this point, or if you're impatient feel free to continue to Step 4.

4) In a greased 8x8 pan add the batter, and bake for 18-20 minutes. Sprinkle extra bacon on top if you desire.

5) Let cool, and then enjoy.

Since it has bacon in it, I did keep mine in the refrigerator, not sure how cooked bacon is sitting out all day.

So that is my experimental recipe to help celebrate BACON DAY a.k.a. My friend John's Birthday.  I don't think I would bake this all the time, but as a fun conversation starter/novelty item, I think it brings the fun factor. 

NOTES:  I actually did two batches.  The first I did slowly and meticulously and I even chilled the dough for a time before cooking.  The second I ran out of patience, and butter (which in my house is a tragedy and hardly ever happens... I swear my refrigerator ate my other box of butter,) so I used what little I had left and my husband's "I CAN Believe It's Not Butter." With very little care and the artificial chemicals, it still came out really well.  They actually tasted about the same.  The second batch I didn't cool the batter, so it just went right in the pan, and I thought cosmetically looked a bit better.  Not as dry and cracked as the first, chilled batch.  SO, sometimes lazy is just as good as the pain staking by the book way.... and has benefits. 

Here is batch one, perhaps over chilled.  It did smooth out a bit as it cooked though.

As Always, Thank you for reading....  
Here's the picture of the bacon one more time....just because!! BACON!!