Rather than a bacon-of-the-moment recipe, this one is actually an antique of a recipe unearthed from a gem of a cookbook: The Saturday Afternoon Club of Santa Rosa’s Gourmet Cookbook. I found at a local public library sale and it’s one of those classic old community cookbooks with fancy-pants, “Gourmet” dishes like Ambrosia, Tuna Cheddar Casserole, Hot Chicken Oriental and Hawaiian Layer Pudding submitted by the many society Mrs. of this town.
This old school cookie recipe happens to be from Mrs. Harry M. Newton, bless her heart, who made me do a triple take with the inclusion of a cup of bacon fat in her Refrigerator Ginger Cookies. And really, it makes sense…rather than use shortening, the recipe uses up leftover bacon fat (which folks used to pretty much covet for cooking).
Coming by a whole cup of fat can be a bit tricky. An average package of bacon will yield around a half cup. I substituted a half cup of butter to even it out.
Bacon Fat Ginger Cookies
Mrs. Harry M. Newton, The Saturday Afternoon Club of Santa Rosa Gourmet Cookbook
(adapted by BiteClub)
1 cup bacon fat
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup molasses
2 eggs (beaten)
2 tsp. ginger (fresh preferably)
1 tsp baking soda
4 cups flour
1 scant tsp salt
Cream bacon fat and sugar together. Add slightly beaten eggs. Stir in molasses. In another bowl, sift together soda, salt, ginger and flour. Add to first mixture. Form into three rolls and refrigerate several hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Slice and bake for 10 minutes. Cool.
As the recipe notes, a package of bacon yields about 1/2C of fat. That’s about 12 pieces of bacon max. This recipe makes a zillion cookies (or maybe about 90) so try making 1/2 the recipe rather than trying to hoard a cup of fat.
I made the full fat version, but added some extra dry spices to the flour and rolled the dough in sugar prior to baking.
Make sure to bake them well, might be closer to 12 minutes to ensure the inside is cooked. They stay chewy either way.
Dunno if I could come up with even a 1/2 cup of bacon grease, but I’m intrigued. Can you taste the bacon in thecookie?
No so stupid; actually we tried the recipe after seeing this article….and the cookies aren’t bad! I’d recommend them (we substituted half the fat with butter, though).