Smoky Bacon Ginger Cookies

Of all the cookies that I ate JUST today... bacon is always going to be my winner.

Smoky Bacon Ginger Cookies

Ingredients:

8 oz. Bacon, diced

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp. baking soda

1 Tbs. ground ginger

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

3 Tbs + 2 tsp. unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cups packed light brown sugar

3/4 cups granulated sugar

1 large egg

1/3 cup unsulfured molasses

1/2 cup raw sugar (for rolling)

1. Cook bacon until crisp.

2. Pour off fat and reserve, let bacon and drippings cool.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

4. combine flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon and salt.

5. Beat butter and sugars.

6. Beat in bacon drippings.

7. Add eggs and mix.

8. Add molasses.

9. Add flour mixture.

10. Mix in diced Bacon

11. Shape dough into 1-inch balls and roll balls in raw sugar, then flatten.

12. Space 2-inches apart on parchment paper-lined baking sheets. Bake 1 sheet at a time for 8 minutes, rotating at 4 minutes.  

Creating some awesome a-- cookies is not all cookie chef Shelley I. does, she also contributes to Yelp.com and displays her powerful writing skills and can be found @ ironstomach.yelp.com  she makes restaurants as tantalizing as bacon. 

Sweet Potato Cookies...

After making a massive amount of sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving, I realized that I was going to need to come up with ways of getting rid of the mounds of orange pumpkin substitute. Originally, I made the sweet potatoes by wrapping them in foil and baking them next to the turkey for 60 minutes, then peeled them, mixed in orange zest, maple syrup and brown sugar, then topped them with pecans and mini-marshmellows and re-baked them until the marshmallows were toasted. 


For the following cookie recipe, I simply used the leftover sweet potatoes from Thanksgiving, marshmallows and all and mixed them in for make Sweet Potato Cookies.


Ingredients:

- 1/2 cup milk

- 4 cups sifted all-purpose flour

- 2 teaspoon baking powder

- 1 teaspoon salt

- 1 cup butter

- 1/2 cup white sugar

- 2 egg

- 2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

- 2 cup left over sweet potatoes

- 1 teaspoon baking soda

- 1/2 cup dried cranberries

- 1/4 cup nuts

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Combine sugar and butter or margarine. Blend in egg, and sweet potato.

3. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Blend in butter mixture and milk.

4. Mix in cranberries and nuts

5. Cut the dough in half and wrap in parchment paper, roll the in the parchment to form 2 separate logs.

6. Freeze the logs until ready to use.

7. When ready to use, with a serrated knife, slice off cookies at desired thickness.

8. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes (depending on cookie thickness) until brown.

Added by Esteban W. who can be found on Yelp.com @ thesandiegan.yelp.com