So you know that decision I made last month to get back into my healthy eating groove? Well, it is going fantastically. I feel better, I have more energy, I completely cut out soda from my diet, I’m making all kinds of smart food choices and best of all, I’m wearing jeans I haven’t seen since before the kids were born. Hooray! So I’m sure you are probably wondering why in the heck I’ve got a giant picture of chocolate and caramel temptations going on here. Well, here’s the thing. The key to staying on track is not to completely restrict yourself – you need to balance it with little treats and rewards here and there or else you’ll go crazy. I am pretty much obsessed with Girl Scout cookies, so naturally with it being that time of year I keep fighting off my temptation to buy a gazillion boxes of Samoas and scarf them down in one sitting. But that won’t do me any good, will it? I’m certainly not prepared to let all my hard work go down the drain for a box of cookies. So I decided to make my own version with all natural ingredients and less sugar and oh my gosh, they are amazing. So here you go, my surprisingly easy take on Samoa Girl Scout cookies. Enjoy! (But don’t overdo it.)
These will probably take you around an hour start to finish, but if you’re short on time you can either make your shortbread and come back to it later, or use store bought shortbread cookies if you really want. The shortbread recipe I’m using is a classic that I grew up with and it is really similar to the pie crust method I use with a few subtle differences. It holds up really nicely to the layers and melted chocolate without crumbling and makes around 18 cookies.
First preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Mix your butter and sugar in a stand mixer using a medium speed. Don’t worry if you don’t have a mixer, you can still do it by hand. Next add in your flour, baking powder, vanilla and milk. Sprinkle some flour onto a cutting board or other surface and roll out your dough, making sure to keep sprinkling flour over it so it doesn’t stick.
Now cut out your cookies. You can use a cookie cutter if you have one, but I don’t so I shaped mine using a small cup and the end of a piping tip for the hole. Bake them for 10-12 minutes.
Set them aside to cool and start on your topping mixture. Here is what you need:
one bag of sweetened coconut
half a bag (around 5 oz) of caramels
1 tbsp milk
dark chocolate baking chips
Spread your coconut out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and stick it in the oven for 10 minutes, taking it out halfway through to mix it up. When it comes out it will be golden brown, toasted and smell amazing!
Melt your caramel and milk together in the microwave according to package directions, then lightly mix in your coconut. Spread the mixture onto your cookies with a spoon (and probably your fingers because caramel is sticky). Oh my gosh they look delicious already!
Next melt your chocolate in the microwave and divide it in half. Spread half of it onto a small plate andspoon the rest into a plastic sandwich bag (or piping bag if you’re feeling fancy) and cut off a small portion of a corner. Dip the bottom of each cookie into the chocolate and set them on a baking mat.
Make the famous stripes on top of your cookies using your bagged chocolate and give everything ten minutes or so to harden.
Now you’re finished! Aren’t they just amazing?
These are really delicious and taste just like the real deal. I hope you made enough to share, because these will go super quickly once the word is out! Store them at room temperature and they should stay fresh for 3-4 days. I personally love cold desserts so I like to refrigerate all my cookies. These are great in ice cream, sprinkled on top of a cheesecake and so much more!
Just imagine a buttery shortbread base piled high with a mix of toasted coconut and caramel that's dunked and drizzled in dark chocolate. The result is a homemade take on the iconic Girl Scout cookie, ordinarily only available a few months out of the year.
ABC Smart Cookies is owned by Weston Foods. In years past, the Girl Scouts of the Jersey Shore Council used Little Brownie Bakers to provide cookies to our area. However, this year the council has switched to ABC Smart Cookies. Little Brownie Bakers owns the trademarks for the names Samoas, Tagalongs, and Do-Si-Dos.
Approximately 12 cookies per 6.2 oz. pkg. INGREDIENTS: GRAHAM FLOUR, SUGAR, PALM OIL, WHEAT FLOUR, CANE SUGAR, CORNSTARCH, COCOA, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF INVERT SUGAR, CHOCOLATE, MOLASSES, SALT, NATURAL FLAVORS, BAKING SODA, COCOA PROCESSED WITH ALKALI, SOY LECITHIN, WHEY.
That's why some of our cookies look the same but have two different names. Whether the package says Peanut Butter Patties® or Tagalongs®, or Samoas® or Caramel deLites®, the cookies are similarly delicious.
Raspberry Rally: The latest addition to the Girl Scout menu is the second unhealthiest with 80 calories per cookie. Samoas: It's one of the classics on the menu and the unhealthiest. While it's lower in calories (75 per cookie) than the Rasberry Rally, Samoas have 6g of sugar per cookie.
While these two cookies look the most different, they tasted the most similar. I ate several of these trying to pick out differences, but they are just so similar. That's a huge win for Great Value, though. These iconic Girl Scout cookies are so unique!
Other Girl Scout favorites will be back this year, including Do-si-dos, Samoas, Peanut Butter Patties Tagalongs, Trefoils and – thank heavens – Thin Mints.
In the 1990s, the National Council limited the bakeries providing cookies to just ABC Bakers (a division of Interbake Foods) and Little Brownie Bakers (a division of the Keebler Company).
The 2024 lineup includes classics such as Thin Mints®, Samoas®/Caramel deLites®, Peanut Butter Patties®/Tagalongs®, Adventurefuls® and other fan favorites. “When people buy Girl Scout Cookies, they're buying so much more than cookies.
Shortbread and Trefoils were the clear winner among all of the Girl Scout Cookies. Compared with other varieties, they were the lowest in calories per cookie (30 and 32 calories, respectively).
Girl Scouts of Western Ohio, which has troops in western Ohio and southeastern Indiana, changed bakers for the 2024 season. Each baker makes their own Girl Scout Cookies, which means iconic favorites may differ in flavor and name – and new, specialty cookies are now available.
As much as $3.73 of each box of cookies goes to shipping, restocking and credit card fees, as well as to the local council to maintain camps and properties and pay for programming. That leaves the Girl Scout troops with 75 cents to $1.35 a box in proceeds.
It deftly balances coconut, chocolate and caramel with a soft cookie crust. Samoas are really the only Girl Scout cookies with a classically chewy texture, and they're also a bit sticky if you break them in half.
Little Brownie, a division of Keebler, has been making Girl Scout cookies since the late 1970s. Their cookies have somewhat less descriptive, yet equally recognizable names like Samoas and Tagalongs.
Each cookie uses similar ingredients, but measurements vary. Those slight differences result in Caramel deLites having a higher cookie to caramel ratio. Samoas also tend to have more coconut, along with chocolate coating resembling dark chocolate, rather than the milk chocolate drizzle found on Caramel deLites.
Introduction: My name is Carlyn Walter, I am a lively, glamorous, healthy, clean, powerful, calm, combative person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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