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!
Easy Homemade Samoas are a buttery shortbread cookie topped with toasted caramel and coconut creation with a chocolate drizzle. This classic girl scout cookie is a lot easier than you might think and it uses basic pantry ingredients.
Samoas are one of the most popular Girl Scout Cookies (second in sales only to Thin Mints). Added as part of the GSC lineup in 1975, Samoas cookies are small donut shaped cookies with a cookie base, a chewy coconut and caramel topping and a dark chocolate dip and drizzle.
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. Girls Scouts own the trademarks for Thin Mints, Trefoils, and Adventurefuls, which is why those names are the same.
Longtime fans of Girl Scout cookies may recall once-beloved cookies like Praline Royals, Cinna-Spins, and most recently, the fan favorite Thanks-A-Lot shortbreads. All of these flavors were once offered by Girl Scouts until they were discontinued, much to the chagrin of avid cookie customers.
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.
If you know, you know: The Samoas cookies are the best. If there was ever a perfect cookie, it's this one. 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.
These lemon shortbread cookies dusted with powdered sugar had a decent run from 2011 to 2019. The cookie was named after Savannah, Georgia -- the city where Girl Scouts began and founder Juliette Gordon Low was born.
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.
By the time she returned to America, in 1913, she had a plan to spread Girl Guiding nationwide by changing the name from Girl Guides to Girl Scouts, establishing a national headquarters, and recruiting patrons outside Georgia.
In July 1922, Girl Scout national headquarters published an edition of The American Girl magazine for all Girl Scouts. The issue contained a recipe for a sugar cookie that could be baked and sold to raise funds for local councils. Thus, the simple sugar cookie was arguably the first true Girl Scout Cookie.
As we boogied into the 1970s, the Girl Scouts started to shake things up with new pricing strategies. Some councils tried out tiered pricing, offering deals for buying in bulk or asking a bit more for those extra-special cookie varieties. Cookies usually went for between $1 to $1.25 per box.
Only available online, the Raspberry Rally became a hot commodity and quickly sold out, leading resellers to hawk boxes on eBay for high prices. A Girl Scouts spokesperson told TODAY.com that they were "disappointed" in the unauthorized resale of the cookies and that it "deprived" the troops of experience and profits.
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.
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.
All of our packaging includes information about allergens in two locations: as ingredients in the ingredient line and, underneath the ingredient line, in a “Contains” statement (for SAMOAS®, for example: “CONTAINS WHEAT, COCONUT, MILK, AND SOY INGREDIENTS”).
Introduction: My name is Horacio Brakus JD, I am a lively, splendid, jolly, vivacious, vast, cheerful, agreeable person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
