Who needs Girl Scouts?

Finally, I'm on top of things this week!!

Tonight is the monthly women's group get together at my church and we're all bringing food and recipes. So I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and bring cookies! So I sorta fudged my own rule of only making cookies I've never made before. I hate bringing things to a potluck if I've never made them before because I'm pretty critical of my baking. So, while I've never made these in cookie form before, I have made them as bar cookies before. Medium cheat, but what are ya gunna do?

I made Samoas! These are my absolute favorite Girl Scout cookies. They turn out chewier than the originals, but equally delicious.

Samoas Girl Scout CookiesFrom Baking Bites

Cookies
2 sticks (1 cup) butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Cream together butter and sugar. Slowly mix in flour, baking powder and salt. Add vanilla and slowly add milk until the dough comes together-you may not need all the milk. Roll your dough out to 1/4 inch on a floured surface, and you may need to add flour to keep dough from sticking. Cut into desired shape and place on lined/greased cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes until cookies are slightly browned.

*On a side note-as legit as the cookies look with the center cut out, it's a total hassle when adding the topping, so if you don't mind the difference, just go with a circle!


Topping
3 cups shredded coconut
12 oz. chewy caramels
1/4 tsp salt
3 Tbsp milk
8 oz semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Spread shredded coconut on a cookie tray. Toast for 10-12 minutes, strirring every three minutes. Let cool.
Unwrap caramels and place in a microwaveable bowl. Add milk and salt; microwave for 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Fold in coconut. Spread topping onto cooled cookies.
After all your cookies are topped, melt chocolate chips in the microwave, stirring frequently to prevent it from burning. Dip the bottom of the cookies into the chocolate. Place the remaining chocolate in a plastic bag, snip off a corner, and drizzle across tops of cookies. Eat one. Or two. Or 12.

Lime Coconut Sandwich Cookies

Well, I made sandwich cookies again. No, it's not going to be my "thing" for the entire twleve weeks, I just wanted an excuse to try a new fruit curd recipe, and it fit perfectly with these cookies.

Again, I went through the whole not-stocked-on-kitchen-staples thing, only this time it sent me to four stores in the same day. I nearly gave up on my baking day yesterday, but eventually I got it all worked out. Until I went to make my lime curd and was out of limes. Thus when I say I adapted the recipe, what I really mean is, I ran out of limes, was too lazy to make a morning store run, and crossed them off the ingredients list.

Since moving, working in a kitchen that isn't what I'm used to, has been a strange experience. Ingredients that I grew up with constantly on hand, or fun tools I got used to, aren't standards in all kitchens. Weird, right? Most times I'll look over a recipe and think, ok, got all the ingredients, let's do this! Then I find out that not everyone buys gigantor bottles of cinnamon at Costco. Or, as with my cookies these last two weeks, since most of my kitchen tools are in box #9 in my old bedroom, I've had to make standard drop cookies by hand, and cut out cookies with the open end of a frosting tip. Not the end of the world, I was simply left with all sizes of sugar cookies, and 162 cut out cookies last week. But my things will be here in about one month, and Elton the Kitchen Aid and I will be reunited at last.

I've had these cookies on my radar for a while, because the words chewy, coconut, and lime were calling my name. They were worth the wait. I'm not a big sugar cookie person, but these have such a perfect texture and the coconut and lime add just the right amount of extra flavor. Yum...

Chewy Coconut Lime Sugar Cookies
From Rock Recipes

2 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
zest of one lime
3 Tbsp lime juice
1/2 cup unsweetened toasted coconut
1/2 cup sugar for rolling cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in egg, vanilla, lime juice and zest. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients and coconut until combined.

Roll rounded teaspoons of dough in sugar, and place on lined/greased cookie sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until lightly golden. Don't worry if they're puffed up when you first pull them out. As they cool they'll flatten nicely. Recipe makes about 60 cookies.

My nice stack of varying sized cookies.
I've always worked with a fruit curd recipe I received in a baking class. It was a huge recipe, and did taste great, but the addition of all the butter always made me squirm. I love citrus flavors, and I just wanted tart, crisp lemon flavor, not something muted with butter. (Side note: Sad that something so delicious was cursed with such a gross name. Curd...ugh, shudder....) So when I saw the color of the lemon curd on this website, I had to find the recipe. And, just as I expected, it was butter free-success! It. Was. AMAZING. It's definitely not for the citrus faint of heart. It's bold and fresh and...lime-y. I can't wait to make this with lemon and redo my lemon meringue cake-it'll totally kick it up a notch. Feel free to leave your cookies as they are, they're fantastic on their own.

Lime Curd
"Adapted" from Tartelette

1 cup lime juice
1/2 cup sugar
2 egg + 2 yolks

In a saucepan, stir together lime juice and sugar. Bring to a slow simmer over medium heat. In a seperate bowl, mix the egg and yolk together to combine. Slowly beat some of the lime juice mixture into the eggs. Pour egg mixture back into the pan, and stirring constantly, cook until the mixture thickens-about 5 minutes. Let cool before filling your cookies!


On a final note-these got a "really good" rating from my uncle whom I consider a food consumer, rather than a food enjoyer. Yup, they're that tasty!