Joyeux Kitchen: Ooooooh Samoa!

Homemade Girl Scout Cookies: Samoas

(Click here for the full recipe and come back here for my notes! :)

Doug posted this recipe to my Facebook page in January; I've been putting it off because it seemed like a bit too much of a project.  Well...it was, sort of, but it was SO worth it.  Don't put it off another second--you must make these cookies.

You'll notice that it's a multi-part recipe.  I made the "cookie" part three or four weeks ago and put them in the freezer, in anticipation of a day when I might have the extra kitchen time to cook the caramel.  I found that time this afternoon and pulled out all my ingredients, then read the recipe.  When I got to this part I was immediately concerned:

No directions for a candy thermometer???  Are you kidding?  I put my panic aside and put my faith in Jaime from The Family Kitchen.  (I have a complex about caramel these days because I botched two batches at Christmas.  Always in a hurry does not a good candy-maker make!) 

It's bubbling.

Starting to look more viscous?  Perhaps...

And then, all at once, too fast for me to even snap a picture, it turned deep amber, begged for the cream, and became luscious, velvety caramel.

The above picture is a bit cryptic, I know, but the spike on the edge of the glass is a piece of the cooked sugar--what it should look like when it's at hard ball stage (like a lollipop) and you drop it in the glass of water.  This is the first time I've done caramel this way and it was a huge success!

I didn't have time for a trip to the health food store for unsweetened coconut (you won't find it at the regular grocery store--I looked) so I used sweetened.  Came out just fine.  I added a cup....

Then I added a third-cup or so more, because it didn't look like enough.

Time for dipping!  Jaime recommends using a fork.  This was a blobby mess for me--I found the finger method to be much easier.

There was a little extra caramel after all the cookies were dipped...I ate it. 8)

This is my pastry bag, which I used to drizzle the chocolate on top rather than fiddling with a fork.  The OCD in me wanted nice even lines of milk chocolate.  I've done the fork thing before--it's a big fat pain in the rear and comes out looking all messy and discombobulated.  If you don't have a pastry bag, pour the melted chocolate into a Ziploc bag, seal it, and cut the very tip off the corner of the bag.  Presto!  :)

These little caramelicious bites of heaven were twice as good as the boxed version, and that's saying somethin'.  Yum-nomnomnomnom.