A Few Kitchen Fails and Bacon Fat Gingersnaps!

After two failed recipe attempts over the past couple of weeks, I don’t know what happened, they started off as good ideas but they fell a little short of what I was aiming for.

Julie Child Quote
Julie Child Quote

The first recipe I wanted to make was to use up a half bottle of champagne; I was thinking to cook the chicken in it with some lemon and capers. Well the taste was ok but the look wasn’t what I was going for, so I’m thinking when I try this one again I will use the champagne as a sauce to serve over the chicken.

The second recipe was to use a bottle of Voodoo Maple Bacon Ale that my daughter had gotten for me. I didn’t like the flavor on its own so I figured hey why not cook with it. So I decided to use the pork chops I had on hand and pour the ale over it with a few seasonings and put it in the slow cooker. Sounded like a good idea and it even smelled good when I came home, but the taste was bitter. Only thing I can think of is that it was cooked too long and should have been mixed into a sauce and added at the last few moments of cooking.

“I wish my stove came with a Save As button like Word has. That way I could experiment with my cooking and not fear ruining my dinner.”
Jarod Kintz, Who Moved My Choose?: An Amazing Way to Deal With Change by Deciding to Let Indecision Into Your Life

You would think I was done with cooking after those two fails, but nope, I will try again with both of these, though I don’t think I’m going to get the Voodoo Maple Bacon Ale I will use something else.

Well that left me with ok what to write and cook for the week, well I had found a great cookie recipe from one of my favorite blogs “Bourbon & Brown Sugar”, for a bourbon laced gingersnap cookie and since I love gingersnaps and I had everything in the cabinet, let’s make cookies.

I followed her directions with a couple of twists. In the directions she used her food processor to blend the ingredients, I have one but it’s packed away as I am in between homes and okay I was lazy and did not want to go through that stack of boxes to find my big one and the small one that I have out would have taken forever to mix (I’m lazy, shoot me).

The second thing is I used some of that maple bacon ale instead of bourbon (next time I will use bourbon or rum, I like booze).

The cookies came out with a great color and that good ginger flavor, just a little too much bacon flavor don’t know it if was due to the ale I added or too much bacon fat, so next time and yes there will be a next time I’m going to use just a little less of the bacon fat.

Yes this has been interesting and I’m glad I don’t listen to that little voice in my head that tells me I can’t make it, but I am looking forward to taking some time off so that I can finally get this blog set up over to my self-hosted site and really see what happens with future cooking experiments.

Recipe adapted from Bourbon & Brown Sugar, (no longer up and running it looks like, but I will be remaking these cookies this summer and will use a good KC bourbon for that little punch that’s needed.

Bacon Fat Gingersnaps

  • 3/4 cup Rendered bacon fat (from cooking 1 1/2 to 2 pounds bacon)
  • ½ cup White sugar
  • ½ cup Brown sugar
  • ¼ cup Molasses or cane syrup
  • 1 Egg
  • 2 cups All-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoons Kosher salt
  • 2 teaspoons Baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons Ground ginger
  • ¼ teaspoon Ground cloves
  • 1 teaspoon Ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon Ground allspice
  • 1 tablespoon Voodoo maple bacon ale (or your favorite maple ale)
  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees
  2. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper
  3. Combine all ingredients
  4. Blend until a smooth
  5. Wrap dough in plastic and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours or up to 1 week
  6. Put a thick layer of granulated sugar into a shallow bowl
  7. Scoop one teaspoon sized balls of dough, and roll into a ball between your palms
  8. Drop into the sugar, roll to coat and place on prepared pans. Repeat with remaining dough, placing dough balls 2 inches apart; they will spread out as they cook
  9. Bake until flat and dark brown, about 10**.
  10. Let cool on baking sheet for a few minutes, then transfer to a rack to finish cooling
  11. Repeat with remaining dough
  12. Store cookies in an airtight container

** I baked mines for about 6 to 7 minutes. 

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