Beer Cookies – Homebrew, Chocolate Chips, Bacon, and Cayenne Pepper

So holiday time rolls around, and parties are a plenty.  I had to come up with a new luncheon treat to bring to work, and I wanted to use my own homebrew in it somehow.  After some research I found this recipe.  Perfect! It uses beer, chocolate chips, bacon (everybody loves bacon, right?!?), and cayenne pepper.  As with most things, I had to do some modifications to make it my own and work with what I had at home, so here is what I came up with.

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp coarse salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1  tsp cayenne
• 1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1 package chocolate chips
• 6 slices of bacon, cooked and finely chopped
• 12 ounces of porter, 2 Tbsp go in the batter and the rest gets consumed by the baker

Recipe Steps

1. To make these  cookies, pre-heat oven to 350°F.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and cayenne.
3. In a large bowl, use an electric mixer on medium to beat butter and two sugars for about two minutes, until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla, and beat to combine.
4. With mixer on low, add the porter and then add the flour mixture and beat until combined.
5. Stir in dark chocolate morsels and finely chopped bacon.
6. Drop half tablespoon-size dough onto un-greased cookie sheet, leaving about 2 to 3 inches between each.
7. Bake on center rack of oven for 10-12 minutes.

If using a scoop, make sure it is a smaller one.

Now, remember, I made some modifications from the original recipe found here on Craftbeer.com.  The porter that I baked with was my Bye Week Porter.  It had a nice chocolate coffee flavor to it, so it was a perfect pairing.  You can see it in the main picture for the post.  I did finely chop the bacon and made sure it found it’s way INTO the cookies.  I thought about the idea of putting it on top like the recipe originally said, but I figured a nice even mix throughout would be even better.  I cut the cayenne pepper to the lower amount, as I knew my co-workers are not huge spicy people.  I tried two different sizes of the cookies.  Larger ones took almost 18 minutes to bake due to their dense nature.  The smaller ones were about 10-12 minutes.  I would stick to the smaller ones in the future.

Everything tastes better with bacon!

Things To Ponder

The smaller cookies are more manageable, but the larger ones are a better snack.

• I think I may use some maple cured bacon next time.  That flavor addition sounds wonderful to me.
• I can only make these when I have my own stout or porter.  I think the magic is in the homebrew beer. 😉
• It was the right move to chop the bacon and put it inside the cookies…it helped distribute the yummy flavor.
• Good craft beer pairing?  Xocoveza from Stone.  This makes a great holiday treat!