Christmas and cookies, as Cal Naughton would say, go together like Chinese food and chocolate pudding. So imagine my delight when I stumbled across a blog post inviting me to join in on The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap of 2011. Here’s the deal: I signed up to send one dozen cookies each to three fellow food bloggers. And as I sent mine out, one dozen cookies from three other food bloggers (three dozen total) would be sent my way. 

I knew I wanted to bake something traditional, but with a twist. My train of thought went a little something like this: Christmas-y, Christmas-y. What’s Christmas-y? Fruit cake…mint…eggnog…eggnog! Alright, booze in a cookie is a good start, but what goes with eggnog besides nothing? Hmmm, eggnog. What is nog anyway? Wait…nog…egg. What goes with eggs? Bacon!!! So Bacon and Eggnog Cookies were born.

The base recipe is Mrs. Field’s Eggnog Cookies; I just added a little bit of awesome (i.e., candied bacon).

Bacon and Eggnog Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 1/2c flour
• 1t baking powder
• 1/2t cinnamon
• 1/2t nutmeg
• 1 1/4c sugar
• 3/4c butter, room temp
• 1 1/2c eggnog, divided
• 1t vanilla
• 2 egg yolks
• 1T nutmeg
• 1/2lb candied bacon, crumbled

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300F and parchment up your cookie sheets. Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg and set aside.
2. Cream together sugar and butter. Add 1/2c eggnog, vanilla and egg yolks and beat.
3. Add the dry ingredients and beat at low speed just until combined. Stir in candied bacon.
4. Roll into 1.5T balls and dunk in remaining 1c eggnog before placing on cookie sheet.
5. Sprinkle lightly with nutmeg. Bake for 23-25 minutes or until bottoms turn light brown. Transfer to cool, flat surface immediately with spatula.

I didn’t dunk the cookies in eggnog before I baked them, but I highly encourage you to take that additional step to give it that extra burst of eggnog-y flavor. These cookies were soft, tasty, and full of bacon and booze: a merry combo for a Merry Christmas.