Flourless Peanut Butter Bacon Cookies

So, a few days ago I mentioned that I'll be taking part in a bacon hijinks, a celebration of all that is bacon, otherwise known as Bacon Month! My goal is to share at least two recipes that highlight bacon each week. I thought I'd start with dessert. Afterall, one can make the argument that with bacon in it, it's sort of like eating breakfast.

Since my childhood, warm peanut butter cookies fresh from the oven have been a favorite of mine. I've always loved making them...rolling the dough into balls, cross-hatching them with a fork, biting into the warm, tender cookie and washing it down with some cold milk. Mmmm!

Although I really do prefer a peanut butter cookie made with flour, I'm always amazed by how quickly the flourless variety like the one I'm sharing today (or this one) come together. I find that the thing with flourless cookies are, they have a bit more of a sandy texture, and they fall apart quicker (storing well for less time) than their with-flour counterparts.

But when recipe makes slightly less than two dozen, and they have salty bites of bacon throughout, you can bet that long-term storage is not an issue.

I have thoughts of peanut butter bacon blondies floating around in my head right now, so it's very possible that you'll see another variation on this combo before the month is out!

Peanut Butter Bacon Cookies

Flourless Peanut Butter cookies studded with salty bites of bacon make the perfect treat for that sweet-n-salty dessert lover on your list.

by Heather Schmitt-Gonzalez

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Keywords: bake dessert gluten-free bacon peanut butter cookie American

Ingredients (~21 cookies)

• 1 cup peanut butter, creamy or chunky
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar + more for rolling (optional)
• seeds scraped from 1 vanilla bean
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• big pinch of sea salt
• 6 ounces uncooked bacon, cooked & chopped

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350° F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine the peanut butter, both sugars, and vanilla bean in a large bowl and beat until smooth and creamy, 2 minutes. Add the egg, baking soda, and salt; beat for another 1-2 minutes. Use a spoon or spatula to stir in the chopped bacon until well-distributed.

Pour some extra granulated sugar into a small bowl. Scoop cookie dough into 1 tablespoon portions. Roll each portion into a ball. Roll each ball in the sugar, if using. Line up on the prepared cookie sheets.

Slide into preheated oven and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until lightly golden on the edges. Remove from oven and set the whole sheet on a wire rack to cool.

-adapted from Joy the Baker, who adapted them from The Gourmet Cookbook

This post is part of Bacon Month 2014! As part of the month-long bacon fun, we will be giving away one different bacon-centric cookbook per week during the month of August. You can enter the current giveaway at the bottom of this post. You can see all of the books we're giving away this month, see a list of participating bloggers, and also enter whichever giveaway is currently running by clicking over to my Bacon Month Announcement post at any time.

Keep up with the bacon goodness by following Bacon Month with the #baconmonth and #putsomepiginit hashtags, and find even more bacon recipes and inspiration on our I Heart Bacon Pinterest board! Plus, you'll find a running tab of this month's bacon posts from every participant at the end of every bacon month post!

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