Have you ever had a samoas? I haven't, until now because the only girl guide cookies in Canada are vanilla, chocolate and thin mints. This is something that everyone must try, even coconut haters because they are that good! To make it easier, I made the bar version from Baking Bites. I was seriously addicted to these and they even contain coconut and shortbread, both of which I'm not a fan of.
Unwrap
Melt
Enjoy
I'm posting the recipe showing the proportions of ingredients I used for an 8 x 8 square. For my bars, I made the crust thinner and topping thicker than it would have been had I followed the recipe for a 9 x 13 inch pan.
Homemade Samoas Bars from Baking Bites
Cookie Base:
1/4 cup sugar
6 tbsps unsalted butter, softened
1/2 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
First, make the crust.
Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 8x8-inch baking pan, or line with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter, until fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla extract. Working at a low speed, gradually beat in flour and salt until mixture is crumbly, like wet sand. The dough does not need to come together. Pour crumbly dough into prepapred pan and press into an even layer.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, until base is set and edges are lightly browned. Cool completely on a wire rack before topping.
Topping
1.5 cups shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened) I used unsweetened
8-oz good-quality chewy caramels
1/4 tsp salt
1.5 tbsp milk
1 oz. dark or semisweet chocolate (chocolate chips are ok) - I only drizzled
Preheat oven to 300. Spread coconut evenly on a parchment-lined baking sheet (preferably one with sides) and toast 20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes, until coconut is golden. Cool on baking sheet, stirring occasionally. Set aside.
Unwrap the caramels and place in a large microwave-safe bowl with milk and salt. Cook on high for 3-4 minutes, stopping to stir a few times to help the caramel melt. When smooth, fold in toasted coconut with a spatula. (I melted caramels over a double boiler)
Put dollops of the topping all over the shortbread base. Using the spatula, spread topping into an even layer. Let topping set until cooled.
When cooled, cut into 30 bars with a large knife or a pizza cutter (it’s easy to get it through the topping).
Once bars are cut, melt chocolate in a small bowl. Heat on high in the microwave in 45 second intervals, stirring thoroughly to prevent scorching. Dip the base of each bar into the chocolate and place on a clean piece of parchment or wax paper. Transfer all remaining chocolate (or melt a bit of additional chocolate, if necessary) into a piping bag or a ziploc bag with the corner snipped off and drizzle bars with chocolate to finish.
Let chocolate set completely before storing in an airtight container.
Makes 30 bar cookies.
Note: You can simply drizzle chocolate on top of the bars before slicing them up if you’re looking for yet an easier way to finish these off. You won’t need quite as much chocolate as noted above, and you won’t quite get the Samoas look, but the results will still be tasty.
Sugar cookies always look so pretty, but most of the time they taste bland and leave me feeling like I just wasted a lot of calories on what could have been a delicious chocolate chip cookie. Instead of reading through all the sugar cookie recipes I could find in hopes of lucking out on one that actually tastes great, I made Dorie's espresso shortbread minus the espresso. These are pure and buttery with excellent texture. It almost feels like waste to slather it up with cloyingly sweet icing, which also only took me hours to decorate. For decorating cookies, I would definitely recommend royal icing over the glaze kind simply because it has a nicer finish. I prefer the texture of it better too even though the meringue powder has a slightly sour aftertaste. To colour the icing, it is important to use the icing gels instead of food colouring because that might dilute the royal icing too much. When using royal, you also have to make sure to keep it covered because it dries quickly. For one batch of cookies, you'll probably only need to make half a batch of royal icing..
Espresso-Chocolate Shortbread Cookies
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan
Baking: From My Home to Yours
Makes 32 cookies
Ingredients
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder (I omitted)
1 tablespoon boiling water (I omitted)
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate finely chopped, or 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips (I omitted)
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting (optional)
Directions
Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and confectioners’ sugar together on medium speed for about 3 minutes, until the mixture is very smooth. Beat in the vanilla and, then reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour, mixing only until it disappears into the dough. Don’t work the dough much once the flour is incorporated.
Form 2 discs and refrigerate the dough for 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.
Roll the dough into a 9 x 10 1/2 inch rectangle that’s 1/4 inch thick or your desired thickness. Use cutters to cut out shapes.
Bake one tray at a time for 18 to 20 minutes, rotating at the midway point. The shortbreads will be very pale–they shouldn’t take on much color. Let cookies cool for 5 minutes and then transfer the cookies to a rack.
Royal Icing
Whimsical Cakehouse
In a large bowl of a clean electric mixer fitted with a whip attachment, whip to stiff peaks:
1/4 cup meringue powder
1/2 cup cold water
Add and mix at low speed with a paddle attachment, until combined:
1 lb confectioner's sugar
Continue mixing at high speed for 5 to 8 minutes, or until the icing is stiff.
Add and mix on low speed until combined:
1/2 tsp. lemon juice
Cover the bowl with a damp cloth while you are working with or coloring the icing, or immediately place it in an airtight container or pastry cone; otherwise, a hard crust will quickly form as it dries.
Yield: 4 cups
Finally, these were baked and posted! I was going to skip this, but then when I was swamped with tests to study for, I decided that making cookie dough was more fun. I put the dough in the freezer and it sort of just stayed there until now..haha. I halved the recipe, but I think I really should have made 2/3rds of it because as the dough was coming together I was starting to realize that there was no way it could fit in my 9 inch pan without being paper thin. I considered turning them into cookies, but then I decided to use a 9x5 loaf pan. I only used 1/2 the cinnamon (1/8th since I halved) because I was afraid it would mask the coffee flavour. I chopped up some Lacey's we still had leftover from Christmas and reduced the butter to 3/4 cup (1/4 cup + 2 tbsp since I halved) because 1 cup of butter to 1.5 cups of flour seemed like a lot! Plus, the bubbly percolating and puckering Dorie mentioned made me feel like this cookie was swimming in butter. Overall, the texture of these bars were perfect. Crunchy, crumbly with the slightest chew. I'm not a crazy cinnamon fan so I'll omit it next time, but will double up on instant coffee for extra coffee flavour!
Thanks to Whitney of What's left on the table for choosing this recipe, which can be found on her blog and here. Don't forget to check out the TWD blogroll!
The goal of TWD was to bake through the entire book and of course to try new recipes and have a lot of fun on the way! I joined late so there are about 23 recipes to catch up for, but I would still like to go back and complete older TWDs from the beginning. I can't say I was overly excited when I saw that I would have to make shortbread, but after those scones I was sure I wouldn't be disappointed. As usual, the first thing I noticed was the high amount of butter. Even though I wanted to stick to the recipe, 2 sticks of butter for just 1 1/2 cups of flour seemed a little too much so I reduced it to 1.5 sticks. As they were baking, I was starting to see the beautifully cut squares slowly melt into a puddle. Most of the cookies spread so much that they had spiky edges except for the 3 up at the top that best retained their shape.
My cookies didn't end up looking pale as they should have, but I think it worked out better that way. The carmelization of the brown sugar added a nice butterscotchy flavour and when combined with the ground up pecans made a flavourful and amazingly textured cookie. They were really crisp on the outside from all the spreading and slightly chewy in the center. The best part was probably how flaky they ended up being. I may not be a shortbread fan, but I will definitely try these again!
This recipe can be found in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my Home to Yours
