Homemade Samoas Girl Scout Cookies. I don’t think I’ve ever typed sweeter words in my life. Move over Pepperoni Pizza Pull-Apart Bread because mama’s got a new favorite recipe, and it involves the perfect ratio of cookie and coconut to caramel and chocolate.
As far as I’m concerned, there are two types of people in the world: Samoas lovers and Thin Mint lovers. You are one or the other. You cannot be both. I picked my side two decades ago during my days as a Daisy and a Brownie. Team Samoas for life.
We have Instructables to thank for this recipe. 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. So quit hoarding those purple boxes and free up that freezer space by baking up sweet and chewy Samoas from scratch.
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Ingredients
For the cookies:
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 Tablespoons milk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the coconut topping:
- 3 cups shredded sweetened coconut
- 15 ounces store-bought or homemade soft caramels
- 3 Tablespoons milk
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 8 ounces dark chocolate (See Kelly's Notes)
Instructions
Make the cookies:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. In three increments, add the flour mixture to the creamed butter, mixing between each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add the milk and vanilla extract, blending until combined and the dough begins to come together in large pieces.
- Use your hands to divide the dough in half, pressing it together to compact it into two disks. Wrap the disks securely in plastic wrap and refrigerate them until firm, about 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
- Once the dough has chilled, roll each disk out onto a lightly floured surface until it is 1/8-inch thick. Cut out as many cookies as possible with a doughnut-shaped cookie cutter. (See Kelly's Notes for cookie cutter alternatives.) Place the cut-out cookies on a Silpat or parchment paper-lined baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.
- Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating the baking sheet half-way through, until the cookies are pale golden brown. Transfer the cookies to a wire wrack to cool completely.
Make the coconut topping:
- Spread the coconut flakes onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake the coconut for about 10 minutes in a 350ºF oven until toasted, stirring frequently to ensure even browning and so that it does not burn. (See Kelly's Notes.) Remove the toasted coconut from the oven and set it aside.
- Melt the caramels, milk and salt in a double-boiler by placing the caramels in a medium saucepot set over a large saucepot of simmering water. Cook, stirring, until the caramels are fully melted. Remove the saucepot from the heat and combine ¾ of the caramel with the toasted coconut in a large bowl.
- Carefully spread the remaining ¼ cup of caramel atop the cooled cookies then press on a portion of the coconut mixture. Let the cookies cool for 30 minutes. If the caramel-coconut mixture thickens too much at any point while pressing it onto the cookies, return it to the double-boiler and warm it until it's spreadable again.
- Melt the dark chocolate in a double-boiler or in the microwave. Dip the bottoms of the cookies in the chocolate and place them on a wax paper-lined baking sheet. Use a fork to drizzle the tops with chocolate. Let the cookies sit until the chocolate hardens fully.
Kelly's Notes:
- If you don't have a doughnut-shaped cookie cutter, you can use two cookies cutters (such as a circular 2-inch and a circular 1-inch) to form the ring shape. Alternately, you can use the caps to any dry spices to serve as cookie cutters.
- If the dough is too firm to roll out after being refrigerated, let it rest at room temperature for 10 minutes before rolling and cutting out the cookies.
- The shortbread should be very pale golden in color. When in doubt, underbake it!
- If using dark chocolate chips, 8 ounces is equal to about 1 ⅓ cups chocolate chips.
- Coconut burns very quickly, so keep an eye on it and stir often!
- Spreading the cookies with the reserved ¼ cup of caramel gives the coconut mixture a stickier base to adhere to.
- ★ Did you make this recipe? Don't forget to give it a star rating below!
Nutrition
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Recipe adapted from Instructables.
Made them for my boyfriend to take home when he visited them for the weekend and he said everyone loved them. His sister requested that I make some more and even the ones who don’t like coconut said they were really good. Probably the best cookies I’ve ever made!
The cookies do take awhile, but definitely worth it. I followed another review that said to roll out the dough before chilling in the fridge and it took about 45 min to harden. I only used a 11oz pack of caramel melts which I found out was not enough, so def get the amount listed. Also not sure what the recipe called for but I realized I only needed to dip the caramel on the top half of the cookie bc the bottom has chocolate. I used semi sweet chocolate but probably will use dark next time to balance out the sweetness of the caramel. I only had salted butter on hand so I just substituted that and didnt add any of the salt to the cookies or caramel. Overall, definitely a wonderful recipe and will have to make it again and again!
LOVE reading this, Rachel! I’m so thrilled everyone enjoyed the cookies!
Great recipe! Honestly my first try at making the dough didn’t go well, it was way too sticky. My rope for that is if you think you can mix it for another few seconds, don’t – it’s done being mixed.
Also, to keep the caramel from hardening I kept the bowl over the double boiler and just turned that burned on the stove off and never had a problem.
I did find that using a 2in cookie cutter resulted in more than 48 cookies, but the more the merrier!
Yay! I’m so glad you enjoyed the recipe, Lulu!
I am so glad to find this recipe as I always buy Samoas Girl Scout cookies. However, I do take exception to your comment: “there are two types of people in the world: Samoas lovers and Thin Mint lovers. You are one or the other. You cannot be both.” I am here to tell you I am both. I love to put the Thin Mints in the freezer and eat one cold, then rinse my palate and nibble on a Samoas. LOL, I will try this recipe and let you know how it works (tastes!)
Haha! Fair enough, Marti! I hope you enjoy this recipe if you give it a shot! :)
These are good and worth the work! Followed these comments from Kelly and her fans:
1) For the cookies
a) IMPORTANT: The key to making shortbread that doesn’t crumble is to mix it just until the ingredients are incorporated. If you overmix it, it will become crumbly.
b) IMPORTANT: The key to making shortbread that doesn’t crumble is to mix it just until the ingredients are incorporated. If you overmix it, it will become crumbly.
c) As soon as the cookies cool, dip into semisweet chocolate. Work with 2 cookies at a time and share the chocolate from the dipped cookie with the un-dipped cookie by gently rubbing them together, so the chocolate isn’t as thick.
2) For the Carmel :
a) Made my own Carmel. 2 batches.
b) Used the entire first batch to mix with the toasted coconut. As mentioned in the other comments, I took the coconut/carmel mixture and rolled it into a flat disk. I cut it into squares to fit onto the cookies when it cooled.
c) Used the second batch of Carmel as paste. Using a teaspoon, I scooped some Carmel onto the cookies starting from when it hit 220 until it hit soft ball stage, and pasted the disks on top shaping them to the cookie.
3) the rest of the recipe as directed. Might be easier if you break it up into 2 days…
Thanks for your notes, Monica! I’m thrilled you enjoyed the recipe!
How many werthers caramels do you use?
Hi Verna – As mentioned in the recipe above, you’ll need 15 ounces of soft caramels.
I made this gluten free, using 1 to 1 flour. And it turned out amazing! I burned the first round of coconut, but that was my own fault so thank you for putting an extra note about it burning quickly!! Thank you for this recipe!
You are so welcome, Nini! I’m thrilled you enjoyed the recipe!
This is an easy recipe, but has several steps. Nothing is incredibly difficult. It just takes some time. Prepare for your kitchen to smell delicious as you proceed through the steps!
The cookies were very good! I used the melt/chocolate function on my microwave for both the caramel step and the chocolate step. I used a round 2 inch cookie cutter and didn’t bother with the hole in the center.
Yessss! I’m so glad you enjoyed the recipe, Chris!
Made these..burnt blisters on all my fingers but they were a favorite! It’s a rush to get coconut mixture on before it hardens..but my son in law swears it’s the best cookie ever.definatley making again!
Eek! Sorry to read about your fingers, Jill, but I’m so glad you enjoyed the recipe! :)
Surprisingly easy and addicting! I even substituted the flour for gluten free flour, and it worked perfectly! A new favorite recipe.
Woohoo! I’m so thrilled you enjoyed the recipe, Meghan!
Tip:.
Put cookie dough between two parchment and/or plastic wrap layers.
Then roll lightly between the layers to 1/8 inch thick.
Then place flat on baking sheet.
Put baking sheet in fridge for 30 minutes to an hour OR put into freezer for 15 minutes to 30 minutes.
Then peel back top layer of plastic/parchment.
Cut small donut shapes.
Then transfer to parchment line/silicon lined baking sheet.
Don’t add the extra time to have to spread it to 1/8th of an inch thin as hard disks that warm up with rolling.
Pre roll ❤️
Great tip, Becca! Thank you!
These look amazing and I can’t wait to try!
However, the only other girl scout cookie I like is the thin mint so I disagree with you saying there’s one or the other.
Thin mints are pretty good, too, especially when transformed into Thin Mint Cookie Truffles! :)
This looks fantastic! Can’t wait to try it. But…um…i like thin mints, and Samos, and trefoils, and pretty much every other cookie on earth XD
Haha! They’re all great!
Hi I want to make these but don’t like dark chocolate can I use semi sweet thanks can’t wait to make them!
Absolutely!
Just finished making. Everything was looking good until the ‘dipping the bottom in chocolate’ part. Chocolate was still hot and didn’t quite think the technique through, yada yada, the cookies now have more ‘personality’. Lol, gladly this is my personal/ first time batch and the taste/texture and spirit of a Carmel Delight is exact.
I decided only to make half of the batch so I have the short bread in the freezer that I can pull out for the next go round.
Thanks Kelly!
It does take a bit of practice, Faith, but I’m so thrilled you enjoyed the recipe!