While visions of bacon sugar cookies danced in their head …

Increase the flavor volume on the ubiquitous sugar cookie by adding bacon! The holiday season is about bringing family closer together, and here at Bacon Today, we know that bacon brings everyone together. This year, try this recipe we created, a delicious roll-out bacon sugar cookie, so that your whole family can enjoy the holiday spirit of bacon. Roll out the dough and let the children cut out their favorites shapes. When the cookies are done baking, you and your whole family can enjoy the love of bacon as you decorate them with frosting, sprinkles, candy, and more bacon!

INGREDIENTS:
· 1½ cup butter, softened
· 2 cups white sugar
· 4 eggs
· 1 tsp bourbon vanilla extract
· 5 cups all-purpose flour
· 2 tsps baking powder
· 1 tsp salt
· 2 tsp cinnamon
· 1 tsp nutmeg
· 4-6 slices of  Apple Cinnamon Bacon, cooked, finely chopped.

Cooking Directions

1. Cook Your Bacon: Lay strips on a foil-lined baking pan. Place in the oven, then turn oven on at 400 degrees F. Cook for 17-20 minutes. Drain grease from bacon, chop, and set aside. You’ll want to keep an eye on your bacon as the sugar on your bacon can burn if it cooks too long.

2. Mix Your Dough: In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and bacon. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour.

3. Cut Your Cookies: Preheat oven to 400? F. Roll out dough on floured surface ¼ to ½ inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

4. Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

5. Decorate Your Cookies: I used a royal icing I found online and some chopped bacon, but you can use whatever your heart desires. The good thing about these cookies is that they taste wonderful now matter how you decorate them! Go hog wild!

Final Tip

Cutting bacon into pieces before cooking allows you to remove the smaller pieces when they are done, leaving larger pieces to cook longer without burning the smaller sections of a bacon strip.