On My Honor

For as long as I can remember Girl Scout cookies have been my weakness.  I love to make sweets but I don't typically eat many of them.  However, if you put a box of Girl Scout cookies in front of me I could polish off the whole thing without even thinking about it.  Jason and I order cookies from my cousin Lily this year and within two days had finished off the box of Samoas (my ultimate weakness).  I got to thinking that it would be great to just be able to make my own version at home so I let my fingers do the walking and found a great recipe online and decided to test it out.

I was a Girl Scout back in the day but only for a short time.  I don't remember ever selling cookies but I do remember parts of the pledge that starts off, On my honor, I will try. . . so here goes in my best girl scout sing-song voice: On my honor I will try to make the closest copy cat I can to the delicious, amazing and highly adicting Girl Scout Samoa cookie.

The recipe starts off with a simple butter cookie dough:
2 sticks unsalted butter, soft
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
up to 2 Tbs milk
Preheat oven to 350
In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar.  Add flour, baking powder and salt at low speed followed by vanilla.  If mixture is too dry add milk a little at a time until the dough comes together without being sticky (you may not need any milk).  Add flour if dough is too sticky.  Roll out dough to 1/4" thickness (it works best to break dough into three separate batches).

 Use a 1 1/2" cookie cutter to cut out cookies (can use a flower shape for a more authentic looking cookie) and use a small circle cookie cutter or a knife to make the hole in the center of the cookie.

Bake cookies for about 10-12 minutes until bottoms just start to brown and cookies are set.  Remove from pans and let cookies cool.

Lower the oven temp to 300 and spread out a bag of shredded coconut on a baking sheet.  Toast the coconut in the oven for 15 minutes turning the coconut every five minutes until it has reach a nice toasted light brown color

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Caramel Sauce:

12 ounces of chewy caramels

1/4 tsp salt

3 Tbs milk

Unwrap the caramels and add them along with the salt and milk to a microwave safe bowl.  Microwave the mixture for 3-4 minutes, stopping every minute to stir.  Once all of the caramels have melted add the toasted coconut to the sauce.  Using a spatula or spoon coat the top of each cookie with the caramel sauce.  You may need to reheat the mixture for 20-30 seconds at a time if it gets too cool.



As the topping cools, melt 8oz of dark or semi-sweet chocolate in the microwave.  Heat for no more than one minute at a time at no more than 70% power to avoid scorching the chocolate.  Once chocolate is melted dip the bottoms of the cookies into the melted chocolate and place on waxed or parchment paper to cool.

Put the remaining chocolate (or melt a little more if it's all gone) in a piping bag or a ziploc with a small corner cut off and drizzle additional chocolate over the top of the cookie.

I can assure you that these copy-cat cookies look and taste just like the real thing.  They are a little putsy to make but as long as I am not pressed for time I really enjoy recipes like this.  I will still support the Girl Scouts in the future and buy their cookies but it's nice to know that when they are all gone two days later I will be able to make more to get me through the rest of the year.

Recipe from bakingbites.com