Samoa Bars

With summer in full swing and relatives visiting from out of town, we planned a family BBQ a few sundays ago, and craving coconut, I made these Samoa bars, recipe found here: Baking Bites Samoa Bars These are my most favorite girl scout cookies ever, but the boxes just seem to keep getting smaller and smaller every year...maybe I just eat them too fast? Who knows.

Cookie base: 
1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup butter, softened1 large egg1/2 tsp vanilla extract2 cups all purpose flour1/4 tsp salt



You make the dough by creaming together the butter, sugar, vanilla and egg, then slowly adding the flour and salt until dough is crumbly. Then press it into a 13" x 9" pan lined with parchment (for easy removal). Bale at 350˚ for 20-25 min. 


Next time though I would make the cookie layer thinner, as you can see from the photo above the cookie base is much much ticker then the coconut caramel topping - but this is just my preference. 

Topping: 

3 cups shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)

12-oz good-quality chewy caramels
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp milk
10 oz. dark or semisweet chocolate (chocolate chips are ok)

Toast coconut in oven at 350˚ on a baking sheet stirring every 5 min til golden. Unwrap caramels and put in a microwave safe dish with milk and salt and nuke on high for 3-4 min (stopping to stir every minute). Stir til smooth and add coconut when melted. Spread on top of cooled cookie layer. Let sit for a few min and cut into squares. 

Melt chocolate in double boiler (if too thick add a 1/2 tsp of shortening) then dip each square into the chocolate so that bottom is coated. Let cool on parchment lined baking sheet. 

Finally, use remaining chocolate to add decoration to the top of the bars. let cool completely and serve!