Maple Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

INGREDIENTS

1 cup butter, at room temperature (I use lard)

1 1/2 cups maple sugar or brown sugar (make your own maple sugar)

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

2 1/2 tsp maple or vanilla extract

1/4 cup maple syrup

3-3 1/4 cups flour

2 tsp cornstarch

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt (I use this one)

2 cups milk chocolate chips

1/4 cup semi-sweet mini chips

1/4 cup cut up bits of cooked bacon (or I use cracklins, when I have them)

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large bowl, beat lard and sugars. Mix in eggs, vanilla, and maple syrup.
2. Combine 3 cups flour, mint, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a separate bowl, then beat the flour mixture into the rest.
3. Stir in chips and bacon (or cracklins).
4. Preheat oven to 350°F.
5. Place teaspoonfuls of dough on cookie sheets. No need to space out much, these cookies don’t spread when they bake. But you will need to flatten them with a floured cup bottom or a fork if you prefer them to be flatter instead of thick and round. The lard will hold its shape in a thicker mound if you don’t flatten them. (Both ways makes for a delicious cookie, so don’t stress over this.)
6. Bake for 8-10 minutes, switching trays from top to bottom racks halfway through. The cookies may appear a bit underdone, but their edges should just begin to turn golden brown.

NOTES

• I render my lard and freeze it in butter-shaped molds so it’s super easy to use in place on butter in any recipe. Go here for more details about baking with lard.
• If you’re using butter instead of lard, you will probably want to chill the dough for at least 30 minutes before working with it. Add an additional 1⁄4 cup of flour if the dough doesn’t seem quite thick enough after refrigeration. (Before chilling, if I’m using butter in this recipe, my dough is always too gooey, but I resist the urge to keep adding flour because I have made these cookies too cake-like by doing that in the past.)
• If you’re using butter you may find you want to cook the cookies a few minutes longer and cool them completely on cookie sheets, where they’ll flatten, and their centers will harden slightly while on the tray. After they’ve cooled, they’re chewy and moist.
• This recipe has a little more extract than usual; I find I need the little extra “umpf” when baking with lard… I will admit lard does not pack the same taste punch as butter (I LOVE butter yall) but feel free to only add 1 tsp of extract if you’re making these with butter.
• Mini chocolate chips are optional, of course, well I mean to most folks. I don’t see them as optional, cause I love the extra small bits of chocolate in every cookie. Plus, I love having both the milk and semi-sweet tastes of chocolate.
• I recommend either using medium-cooked bacon or be sure to cut crisp bacon into tiny pieces. You don’t want hard chunks in your cookies.
• While any salt will work just fine in this recipe, Redmonds salt is truly the best. It’s mined over 400 feet below ground, right here in the U.S. so it’s naturally protected from pollutants (not something you can say about salt mined from the ocean) and more than 60 trace minerals. If you want to try it out, use my code SWEETSALT to save 15% off your entire order, anytime.

YIELDS ABOUT 4 DOZEN COOKIES