**SAMOAS** directly from your kitchen!!!

So, this is the time that I have to say, these smell good, they look good, and they came sooooo close to tasting good, but I couldn't do it.... as I'm on a diet and have sworn off sugar! What was I thinking when I made these then? Well, they looked like they may be a challenge and I have company coming over that certainly hasn't sworn off sugar and they would LoVe these cookies! I have certainly got rave reviews from the "Samoa thief" in my house... she says they taste just like the real thing! So now it's your turn to decide!

I found this recipe on a cooking blog quite awhile ago and have adapted it a little to my liking. So thanks to http://www.wordstoeatby.blogspot.com/, we can all have Girl Scout Cookies in our kitchen's YEAR ROUND! I love the sound of this... it's like music to my ears.

For the cookies:

2 1/2 sticks butter, softened

2/3 cup sugar

3 1/4 cup four

Set your oven racks in upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat it to 325 degrees. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Beat butter and sugar on medium speed for 5-10 minutes until it becomes light in color and very soft and fluffy. It reminded me of cool whip...

Fold in flour by hand. Dough will be very soft. But is suprisingly easy to work with. Place a handful of dough at a time on a lightly floured surface. Use floured palm of your hand to press out dough 3/8" thick. DON'T ADD ALOT OF FLOUR. Cut out dough with fluted round cutter dipped in flour. Keep the scraps and re-roll them and cut them. If your don't add alot of flour, you will have an easier time and the re-rolled cookies will be just as tender as the ones first-rolled out :-) You will want to use a thin metal spatula to move dough from the counter to the pan. I placed 32 cookies on each cookie sheet. They don't spread so the spacing is minimal.

Place both pans in oven, one on each rack. Bake 8 minutes, rotate pans, then bake another 8 minutes. Take out and place on cooling racks.

For the Topping:

4 c. sweetened shredded coconut

1 1/2 pkg (14 oz) caramels

3 T milk

4 oz chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Spread coconut evenly on cookie sheet and toast 15-20 minutes until golden brown. Remove and stir every 5 minutes to prevent burning. Set aside.

Unwrap caramels and put into a large microwave-safe bowl. Add milk and cook on high 2-3 minutes, stopping to stir every 30 seconds until caramel melts and incorporates into milk. Add coconut and stir to combine.

Top each cooled cookie with a teaspoon of mixture.

Melt chocolate in a microwave safe bowl in 30 second intervals until melted and smooth. Pour into a ziploc bag and seal the bag. Clip a corner off the bag and you have an instant decorating bag! Drizzle chocolate over each cookie! Let rest so the chocolate sets up.... then eat!!!!

Enjoy!

Happy Cooking

Teauna