Knock-Off Girl Scouts' Samoas Cookies

I have had this recipe in my bookmarks for a while and haven't worked up the courage to make them yet.  But I was looking for something a bit more challenging than just your average cookie, so I decided to make these.  I had never made a shortbread type of cookies before and I'll be honest, I had some really frustrating moments.  But overall, the result was fantastic.  I'm pretty proud of my first time at making these, because the next time I attempt these, they will be even better!

Cookie
1 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. sugar (I used Splenda)
2 c. flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla
up to 2 Tbl. milk

Topping
3 c. shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened, I used sweetened)
12 oz. chewy caramels
1/4 tsp. salt
3 Tbl. milk
8 oz. dark or semisweet chocolate

To make the cookies:
1. Preheat oven to 350. 
2. Cream together butter and sugar; mix in flour, baking powder & salt at a low speed.
3. Add vanilla.  Add in milk in 1/2 Tbl. increments--use enough needed to make the dough come together without being sticky.
4. Refrigerate dough (mine was SO STICKY), then roll dough out in a few batches (I did 4) in between pieces of flour and wax paper.  Use a cookie cutter (or a glass) to cut out rounds.  You might want to add flour in order to help dough roll out better, it can be pretty sticky. 
5. Place cut out rounds on greased baking sheet and make a hole in the center.  Reroll dough and use until all dough has been used up.
6.  Bake cookies for 12-15 minutes, until bottoms are very lightly golden brown around edges.
7.  Allow cookies to cool completely

To make the topping:
1. Preheat oven to 300.  Spread coconut evenly on a rimmed baking sheet lined with foil and toast for 20 minutes.  Stir every 5 minutes, until coconut is golden.  It might seem like that's a lot of coconut, but trust me on this.  You'll want it.  Watch the coconut carefully the last 8-5 minutes.  Let cool.
2. Unwrap caramels and microwave with milk and salt.  Cook on high 3-4 minutes, stopping to stir.  When smooth and melted, stir in toasted coconut.  And try not to eat it all, because it's very yummy.
3.  Spread topping on cooled cookies, using 1-3 tsp. per cookie. 
4.  After topping has set up, melt chocolate in a small bowl.  Transfer chocolate to piping bag or a large ziplock bag with the corner snipped off and drizzle chocolate onto cookies. 
*the original recipe says to dip cookies 1/2 way and THEN to drizzle, but my cookies were a bit too fragile for this to work.
**also the next time I make these, I think I will quickly dip the cookies into a thinner chocolate mixture before adding the topping, so it will stick to the cookie better.

Makes 3-4 1/2 dozen cookies--I personally got 41 from this batch.

pre-drizzle

post-drizzle

Healthier Carrot Cake

This cake is awesome.  I have made it twice now and think I might have the (sheet cake) recipe perfected.  I may eventually try cupcakes and a full size round cake in the future.
The reason I love this cake is because I’m pretty proud of my skills in the kitchen.  The last few months have been a fun challenge for me, as I’ve tried to make our meals healthier and better for us.  We aren’t doing anything too hardcore, like moving straight into a vegan diet or cutting out sugar or anything like that.  We are just gradually trying to move into eating better, more organic and real food.  In the past when I’ve tried to cut something cold turkey, it doesn’t really stick with me and I give up and feel defeated.  However, with these gradually changes with substituting better and healthier ingredients to cut calories and fat but not compromising taste, it’s been pretty successful!  And I think I’ll be able to keep this up and eventually become a *True Master of the Kitchen*, which is a term I just made up.

My logic to this cake was to make a better, healthier cake so that I could have a more indulgent cream cheese frosting.  There are some things in this world that I can’t say no to and one of them is cream cheese frosting.  I didn’t want to make a ‘skinny’ version of the frosting because I wanted to make sure it tasted good.  I think it’s a fair compromise!

Ok, this recipe.  I can’t even remember where I found this recipe, but here’s the original one that I adapted can be found. It’s not a very involved recipe, but I like making sure that when I bake, everything is done accurately and well.  For this recipe, I substituted unsweetened, natural applesauce for the oil and splenda sweetener for the sugar.  I might try it with a combo of white and whole-wheat flour…we’ll see.


2 c. flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
4 eggs (room temperature)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. unsweetened, natural applesauce
1 c. Splenda sweetener substitute
4 c. grated carrots (I used 1 small bag of pre-grated carrots and chopped them up so they’d be smaller)

1 batch cream cheese frosting:
            ¼ c. unsalted butter (room temperature)
            8 oz. cream cheese (room temperature)
            1 tsp. vanilla
            3 c. powdered sugar

1.       Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease a 9 x 13” baking dish.
2.      Whisk together dry ingredients; beat eggs in with vanilla and set both aside.
3.      In a large bowl, beat together the applesauce and splenda in a mixer until they reach a uniform consistency.  With mixer on low, add in 1/3 of the flour.  Beat until incorporated.
4.      Add in 1/3 of the eggs mixture and beat until well incorporated.  Add another 1/3 of the flour, beat.  Add remainder of the eggs and beat well.
5.      Add last of the flour.  Stop mixing once last of the flour is barely incorporated. 
6.      Fold the carrots into the batter with a spatula, until no more dry flour remains and carrots are well mixed in.
7.      Pour batter into greased baking dish and tap against the counter a few times to get any air bubbles out. 
8.      Bake 40 – 45 minutes.  Let cake cool completely before frosting.
9.      For frosting, beat together butter and cream cheese.  Once they are well mixed, add in vanilla and powered sugar, slowly. 
10.  Beat until creamy, scraping down the sides of the bowl.