Recipe Review: Homemade Girl Scout Cookies: Samoas Bars

Recently, Baking Bites, a fantastic baking blog, has posted a series of recipes for making your own Girl Scout cookies. When I saw a recipe for Samoas bars, I had to give it a whirl. (If you prefer more authentic looking Samoas, there are instructions for that too.)

The recipe was fairly straightforward, and aside from the coconut and caramels did not require anything I wouldn't otherwise have on hand. Unwrapping each individually-wrapped caramel took a long time, and next time I would consider making my own caramel sauce. Toasting the coconut was a snap, and I was able to do it at the same time that the shortbread cookie base was baking.

I liked that the recipe had a number of helpful reminders/tips throughout (stop and stir the chocolate frequently when melting, use parchment paper and a wire cooling rack, a ziplock with a hole in a corner can be used as a pipette, etc.) I think it would have gone more smoothly had I followed the directions more closely and waited for each stage to cool completely, but I was impatient and rushed and the cookies turned out mostly OK (a little crumbly, and not as pretty as the Baking Bites ones, but still delicious.)

I definitely recommend this recipe for Samoas fans and will be making it again. If you've never had a Samoa, but love toasted coconut, caramel, and/or shortbread, I'd give it a whirl.

In Search of Sweet Potato Pie

I have fond memories of sweet potato pie from my college days. The ladies at the campus cafeteria downtown made an excellent sweet potato pie that I would treat myself to on dismal winter days. It was thick, rich and substantial. Not too sweet, but definitely not bland. Very satisfying. And way better than pumpkin pie.

Its been awhile since I've made sweet potato pie at home, so I decided to start with what seemed to be a tried and true recipe from All Recipes. Although I followed the basics of the recipe, I made the following modifications:

• I used four small sweet potatoes instead of one large one. Using one sweet potato to me is like using a single clove of garlic--why bother?
• I used 3/4 a stick of butter instead of a whole stick.
• I subbed 1/2 of the white sugar with brown sugar.
• I used soy milk instead of regular milk.
• I used a store bought graham cracker crust. I love these and almost always prefer them to a "real" crust.
  

The resulting pie was tasty, but a bit too airy and mushy for my tastes. Even though I had enough filling for each slice of pie to seem substantial, it lacked the heft and weight I was after. I think next time I might try subbing sweetened condensed milk for regular milk. Any other suggestions for baking a killer sweet potato pie?

Herbed Cheese Biscuits

What's soup without homemade bread? So, after making the split pea soup, I decided to try Herbed Cheese Biscuits as described on Pinch My Salt. I followed the basic recipe, using a combination of parsley and basil for the dry herbs, and I added a chopped green onion. I used cheddar for the cheese and low-fat sour cream for the sour cream. As you can see, I cut the biscuits into triangles using a knife.

The recipe didn't take very long to make, and the dough was very easy to work with. The mustard powder and parsley gave the biscuits a pleasing color, and the texture was what you would want from a biscuit. Overall, I was a bit disappointed with them--I thought they were too bland and would have benefited from some garlic. My partner liked them better than I did, although also commented that the texture was good but the taste was missing something.

Next time, I think I'll stick with Rasa Malaysia's Cheddar Bay Biscuits.

Recipe Review--Post Punk Kitchen Chocolate Chip Cookies

I was drawn in by this recipe for chocolate chip cookies at the Post Punk Kitchen (PPK), and decided to give it a whirl.

I followed the recipe fairly closely--I used olive oil instead of canola because we didn't have canola, and soy milk instead of almond milk. I did not use tapioca flour, again because I didn't have it, although I read later that I could have probably substituted corn starch for it. I may have used slightly more chocolate chips than originally called for, as I was just finishing up a bag.

The cookies turned out pretty well, and looked remarkably like the ones on the PPK blog. The chewy texture was nice and even my partner, who does not like chocolate, enjoyed them. During the baking process, the greasiness of the dough was overwhelming--it was hard to escape just how much oil went into this recipe. If you're looking for a decent vegan chocolate chip recipe, I would recommend this one, but if you're a vegetarian or omnivore, I would recommend a recipe that uses butter and eggs instead. Halfway through the recipe I found myself asking why I was making these vegan cookies when I had butter and eggs in the fridge. Overall, it was nice to have some cookies on hand and the adventure served as a reminder that vegan isn't always better for vegetarians.