Samoa Cookies

These cookies we're eaten by a lot of people.  At least 10 different people had a go at them, and 10 people were wonderfully satisfied by their sweet, nutty, chocolaty, buttery, chewy goodness.  They were my Father's Day present for my dad and Kam's dad Larry.  I tried to think of a cookie that my dad loves and the Samoa Girls Scout cookies popped into my head.  Those were always his favorite when cookie selling time rolled around each year.  Yes I was a girl scout (and a brownie and daisy too).  So anyways, these suckers are delicious and time consuming, but so worth every minute.

What you'll need:

(I doubled my recipe, pictures will show doubled amounts)

For the cookie:

2 cups flour

1 cup butter (2 sticks) softened

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon milk

Cream butter and sugar. Add vanilla and milk.  Mix in flour.  Take one large piece of wax paper and drop dough in center.  Going the long way, roll dough into a long tube about 14" long or about 2.5 inches thick.  Place in freezer for about an hour.  

Once cold preheat oven to 350.  Remove from freezer and slice into 1/4 inch thick cookies.  Bake on wax paper or I put tin foil over my cookie sheet and sprayed with a little cooking spray.  Bake 10-12 minutes or until bottoms are golden brown.  Tops won't brown.  Remove from cookie sheet and allow to cool.  They don't need too much space between each cookie, they don't spread too much.

Topping:

3 cups sweetened shredded coconut

1 bag or 14 oz chewy caramels

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons milk

1 1/2 cups dark chocolate (I used special dark chips)

Preheat oven to 300.  Evenly spread coconut on a cookie sheet with an edge.  Toast coconut, checking and tossing every 3 or 4 minutes until lightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool. Unwrap caramels.  Place caramels, milk and salt in a medium non stick pan. Heat over medium low, stirring once begins to melt fairly constantly until smooth.  Fold in coconut until everything is well coated.  Make sure you get all the caramel off the bottom.

By this time your cookie should be cooked.  Using a spoon, drop around 2 tablespoons of the coconut onto each cookie pressing down into the cookie as much as you can.  This part is a little difficult because of how sticky the coconut and carmel is.  As it cools it will sink and stick to the cookie more.

Once finished with coconut, heat 1 cup chocolate in the microwave in a pie plate or rimmed dish for 30 seconds at a time, stirring between until very melted.  Take each cookie and dip bottoms into chocolate.  I used a butter knife to slide under cookie to lift back up.  If you pull on the coconut it will pop off.  Place on wax paper to cool.  Once done dipping bottoms, melt last 1/2 cup chocolate and place into a zip lock bag.  Snip a tiny hole in one of the bottom corners of the bag and drizzle chocolate over tops of cookies.  Let cool over night, store in air tight container.

Box em up and send them to people you love!!  Try not to eat too many.  I'm thinking up a way to hybrid this into ice cream.  How yummy would that be?  Enjoy!