Homemade Samoas Cookies

Jingle bells, Santa smells, ah hell, bah humbug!

I slaved, literally slaved, over a hot stove, to make these imitation Samoas cookies. They may be homely, as well as homemade, but they tasted finer than those much more manufactured Girl Scout originals. Think of theirs as attack of the clones and mine as true Jedi warriors. Available in Star Wars themes? Not.

Imagine molten caramel and bubbling hot, boiling chocolate, all layered with toasted coconut on top. Double boiled, because, heaven forbid, you can’t scorch your sweets. And as I learned after snapping my first two donut shaped wafers:

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.

That was an understatement. Spreading caramel is best done directly from its molten cauldron, preferably with a too hot to handle metal knife. Otherwise the stuff will freeze mid-spread.

Making this “easy” to create recipe was way more difficult than advertised, but that’s not my main complaint, not by half. Its purported preparation time was less than twenty minutes. The seven pictured cookies represent just one hour’s production rate. I made 35 cookies. Which means I performed five hours worth of backbreaking labor and I now have the sore back to prove it.

Still, I persisted. All of this work was for a Christmas cookie party that we annually attend. Anne and I worked right up until the last moment. They were a big hit! I felt so pleased with our afternoon labors that I felt no compunction to make cookies at the party. Every party has a pooper, that’s why you invited me.