Bacon Maple Butter Cookies & Homemade Pork Burger - our Valentine's Day menu :)

Bacon Maple Butter Cookies

Bacon is the theme for our 5th Valentine's Day together. Hubby loves bacon. Me too. Who don't love bacon huh?

I've made some Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cream Cheese Butter Cookies and the forever-awesome German Butter Cookies earlier this month. So I adapt the recipe to make these Bacon Maple Butter Cookies. :)

Ingredients:
(Makes 30 small cookies)

125g salted butter, softened at room temperature
35g icing sugar
1 small egg
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
200g all-purpose flour
65g fried bacon bits, with bacon fat

How to:

1. Use an electric mixer to cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy in a mixing bowl. Add egg and beat until well combined. Add vanilla extract and pure maple syrup and beat again.

2. Add flour and bacon bits. Use a rubber spatula or your hands to mix until a ball of dough is formed. The dough will be a bit wet but not too sticky.

3. Cling-wrap the dough and refrigerate for about 30 minutes until firm.

4. When it's time to bake, preheat oven to 170°C and line a baking tray with baking sheet.

5. Shape the dough into small balls and place them on the prepared baking tray.

6. Bake in preheated oven for 17-18 minutes. Let cool on the baking tray for about 10 minutes before transferring them to cool down further on a wiring rack. Store in airtight containers. Best eaten within 3-4 days.

These balls of goodness are ready to be baked.

After baking!

Cooling them down on my cooling rack.

Then, for our dinner, we have Homemade Pork Burger.

Homemade Pork Burger

The ingredients are actually pretty simple. Hubby likes simple meals - clean, easy to eat, anything with BACON. LOL. Armed with this "mantra" - keep it simple - these gorgeous burgers are born!

Just the three of us. :)

Ingredients:
(Makes 2 adult burgers)

Homemade pork patties (250g minced pork, 5 slices bacon, 1 clove of garlic, salt, pepper)
Cheddar cheese block, cut into slices
4 slices of bacon, fried
2 eggs
2 burger buns, cut into halves
Cherry tomatoes for garnishing
Bacon cookies for garnishing

How to:

1. To make the patties, cut the bacon into tiny pieces, chop the garlic finely, and mix them with the minced pork. Season with salt and pepper. Refrigerate the mixture for at least 2 hours.

2. To fry the patties, shape the minced pork mixture into four patties. Flatten slightly with your hand and make an indent in the middle. Heat up olive oil and butter in a frying pan. Pan fry the patties until cooked, about 5-6 minutes on each side, on medium heat. Leave to cool slightly on a plate.

3. Fry bacon in another frying pan, then fry sunny-side-up eggs with the bacon fat in the same pan. Then, melt a little bit of butter in the same pan and put the burger buns in the pan, cut-side down, to soak up the bacon fat and butter.

4. To assemble: bottom bun - pork patty #1 - cheese - bacon - pork patty #2 - cheese - bacon - egg - top bun with sesame seeds. Serve on a plate and garnish with cherry tomatoes and bacon cookies.

Ain't it gorgeous? :P

Yums!

This post is linked to Cook and Celebrate: CNY 2015 organized by Yen from Eat your heart out, Diana from Domestic Goddess Wannabe, and Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids.

This post is also linked to Best Recipes for Everyone Jan and Feb 2015 Event Theme: My Homemade Cookies organized by Fion of XuanHom's Mom and co-hosted by Victoria of Victoria Bakes.