Bacon Cookies with Salted Caramel

Bacon cookies! (apologies for bad lighting)

This is like the entire internet in one single spectacularly, deliciously messed up cookie.

The internet loves spicy things, and japanese things, and spicy Japanese things. (represented here by the Shichimi Togarashi Seven Spice mix). The internet loves salted caramel stuff, and LOVES bacon. All I'm missing are some LOLcats.

I made these for a Halloween party tonight and its interesting to see where people fall on the whole 'bacon cookie' issue. Some people were like, "bacon..cookie. no." Others: "BACON COOKIE HELL YES."

I admit, they sound kind of wierd, especially with all the random things in them. but they really are good. They hit all the spicy-smoky-sweet-salty-buttery areas. 

Seven spice Bacon Shortbread with Salted Caramel

Cookie:

I used ruhlman's ratio for basic cookie dough, with some adjustments as I found it a little dry and wanted a more cohesive dough. 

The ratio is 1 part sugar to 2 parts fat to 3 parts flour. I was very skeptical about this, never having baked without a recipe, until I tried it - and I can honestly say it works!

• 3 oz brown sugar
• 1 oz white sugar
• 8 oz salted butter
• 1 tsp bacon grease
• 12 oz flour
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp seven spice mix AKA Shichimi Togarashi red pepper mix
• 2 tsp water (or as needed)
• 3 pieces crispy bacon, chopped fine

1. Cream the butter and sugar together. 
2. Add the egg and vanilla and mix. 
3. Add the flour, spice powder. It will be VERY dry so add water as necessary - you want it to just come together into a crumbly dough. 
4. Form into a log and wrap tightly in saran wrap, and chill in the fridge until you are ready to make cookies.
5. When you're ready to bake, slice the log of dough into thin, flat discs, or you can probably roll it out and cut them if you so desire.
6. Bake at 350 for about 13 minutes or until just beginning to turn golden at the edges.

Salted Caramel topping:

You can make actual caramel, but as I was pressed for time I used dulce de leche that I had made earlier in the week. Making dulce de leche is DEAD EASY. As in, you really don't need to do anything other than make sure the cans don't explode. This is best and easiest accomplished with a slow cooker.

Dulce de leche  is basically a can of sweetened condensed milk, cooked low and slow until the sugars caramelize.

Take your can(s) of sweetened condensed milk, remove the labels, cover completely with water and cook on low in a slow cooker for 8-12 hours.  

To assemble:

Take a cookie, frost with dulce de leche and sprinkle sea-salt on top. Alternatively, you could make sandwich cookies with the dulce de leche and sea salt in the middle, and maybe a sprinkle of pepper powder on top.