I’m tired, way too tired, to get creative here so I’ll cut to the chase: Shortbread crust, caramel, coconut, chocolate. Need to know more?
I didn’t think so. These are Samoa cookies, also known as the cookies I will never make again. While the idea of rolling out cookies and letting your kids use cookie cutters sounds wonderful in theory, it is anything but. By the time their sticky little hands cut out the cookies with the 1,543rd cookie cutter they settled on, the dough is too warm. So, you end up throwing it out. But I digress.
This was a several day, multi-hour process. Worth it? Yes, they turned out extremely well. But I will never take so many hours to make them again.
If you have children who are grabbing at you demanding milk, no cold water, no freezing water! Or need you to moderate an argument, or make a triple-decker grilled cheese, right now, then give this a miss. If you are single and free, and you know what a double boiler is, go right ahead. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Substitutions: There wasn’t nearly enough caramel to mix with the coconut. Fortunately I had some leftover dulce de leche, and the consistency was great, just thin enough that I was able to mix it with the coconut and spread it on the cookie. If I were to make this again – and I won’t – I would use the melted soft caramels only for the first layer, and then the dulce de leche and coconut mix for the second layer.
Also, at first I was following instructions and rolling out the dough thin like suggested, but I soon realized it was browning even before the time was up, and those ones would break in my hands while I tried to spread the caramel or dip it in chocolate.
Finally, I used semi-sweet chocolate where the recipe called for dark chocolate but that’s just because I bought semi-sweet chocolate in bulk. Dark chocolate would probably be better because these are super sweet. And I’m okay with that.
Would I make this again? If you don’t know the answer to this, then you haven’t been paying close attention, so let me repeat – no. Ain’t nobody got time for these cookies, no mama of young kids, anyway.
Grade: Five stars out of five. After all the time it took to make these, the shape and the layers of goodness really do lend themselves to a remarkably tasty cookie. Even the shortbread is a lovely buttery, crumbly shortbread and stands up on its own. If you think the dough seems too soft to roll out, make sure to use copious amounts of flour and pop it back in the fridge until it’s the right consistency. And I think that’s why this took me so long … because I knew that if I didn’t get the dough right, the rest would fall apart. I only had to sacrifice a few cookies for the cause, so I did something right!
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