Okay, before you get all self-righteous on me, I’m going to add a disclaimer: You should buy real Girl Scout cookies. Or at least donate to the Girl Scouts. Because it’s an amazing organization that advocates increasing STEM involvement & entrepreneurial/business skills in girls. Basically teaching girls to be leaders, which is extremely important! So definitely support our [Girl Scout] troops, and shell out for some delicious, authentic cookies. But…
Girl Scout cookies aren’t here all year long. Sure, you might be the type of person who freezes them and doles them out to yourself for several months. But if you’re like me, the boxes you bought were gone in about 8.5 seconds because you inserted entire sleeves of Thin Mints directly into your esophagus. With or without the packaging removed.
I was only a Girl Scout for about half a year in third grade because I joined late and then my troop disbanded. The only thing I remember doing was making stilts out of old coffee tins and tottering around the school parking lot. (It occurs to me that this may no longer be possible because I think most coffee comes in plastic tubs now. Because coffee companies hate children and their whimsical stilts.) But I’ve heard that there is a lot more to Girl-Scouting than that.
I will admit that I still have some kind of strange desire to do Girl Scouty things and earn badges. Can there be a Woman Scouts? I would totally earn my baking badge with these recipes and sew it onto a tote bag. Or can it be an iron-on? Because I haven’t earned my sewing badge yet.
For the Shortbread Cookies, I opted to include part brown sugar and buttermilk, which are both used in the authentic Trefoils®. I feel that it gave the cookies a bit more depth of flavor than traditional shortbread.
The Sugar-Dusted Lemon Cookies are reminiscent of the Girl Scouts’ Savannah Smiles®. My version is similar to Mexican Wedding cookies, but without nuts, and with lemon zest and juice for flavor.
In place of Tagalongs®, I made Chocolate-Coated Peanut Butter Cookies, which were pretty simple considering I grew up in Ohio (aka The Buckeye State). The process for making the peanut butter filling couldn’t be simpler… just mix together peanut butter and confectioners’ sugar and slap it onto a shortbread base. Dip the whole thing in milk chocolate and you have a pretty decent imitation.
For my Crisp Chocolate-Mint Cookies, I made chocolate shortbread base, flavored with peppermint extract instead of the peppermint oil used in real Thin Mints®. The extract is easier to find in most grocery stores, so you won’t have to go anywhere special to make these pronto.
The Samoas® knockoffs, called Chewy Chocolate-Coconut Cookies, were the highest stakes for me, because they’re my favorite cookie. I went through several iterations of the caramel sauce before getting one that was the right consistency and flavor. The best thing about making your own is that you can add as much caramel-coconut topping per cookie as your little heart desires. (My heart desires a lot of it.)
Get all the recipes over at Delish.com.
Source: siftandwhisk.com (defunct blog)
