Samoa Girl Scout Cookies (AIP & Paleo)

These autoimmune paleo girl scout cookies will earn you a cookie badge for sure! These grain-free, paleo, vegan caramel, and toasted coconut shortbread cookies are every bit as good as the “real” thing! Actually, we think they are even better!

Coconut Shortbread Cookie Base:

Caramel Layer:

Toasted Coconut Topping:

Carob “Chocolate” Drizzle:

Directions:

Coconut Shortbread Cookie Base:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Using a food processor blend coconut flakes for 2 to 4 minutes until they are pulverized, and ground into fine pieces. Do not blend all the way into coconut butter.
3. Add in coconut flour, and blend again for 20 seconds.
4. Add in maple syrup, and blend.
5. And in coconut oil, blend.
6. Transfer the mixture to a bowl to continue incorporating the coconut oil as it will get pretty thick.
7. Chill the bowl of cookie batter in the fridge for 15 minutes. (This will firm up the dough and make it easier to roll out.)
8. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
9. After the dough chills and firms up, roll it out into cookies. Take a small ball of dough at a time and flatten it out using your hands. Use a round cookie cutter, like a glass or jar lid, to shape each cookie. You can use a smaller cookie cutter to remove the inner circle to make a donut shape, or just leave them whole. The easiest way to do this is to remove the excess dough around each cookie, without moving or disturbing the unbaked cookie shapes. NOTE: you are flattening out a little bit of dough at a time, cutting out the cookie shape, and then flattening out a little more dough. I do not recommend rolling out all the dough at once as this is not like traditional cookie dough. Repeat this step until you have all your cookies rolled out.
10. Bake cookies for 7 to 10 minutes. Keep a very close eye on your cookies to prevent burning! After the first 7 minutes, check on them every minute or so. You want them to get to a very light golden brown color, but not burn.
11. IMPORTANT: Do Not Disturb Cookies until FULLY COOL. The cookies will crumble when still hot out of the oven. I let them cool on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes, and then I transfer the entire cookie sheet into the fridge to cool off for another 20 minutes. Once fully cool, these cookies hold together really well!

Caramel Layer:

1. Make the caramel layer by blending the dates with water in a food processor. (Be sure to remove pits from dates before blending).
2. Add in 2 tablespoons of coconut oil, and a tiny pinch of sea salt, and blend with dates into a thick caramel-like spread. You can spoon date caramel into a jar and chill it in the fridge until ready to use. After the shortbread cookie base is FULLY COOL, you can spread the date caramel onto each cookie base.

Toasted Coconut Layer:

1. I find the easiest way to toast dried coconut flakes is in a small DRY saucepan over medium heat on the stovetop. I keep a close eye on the coconut flakes, stirring them almost constantly, until nice and toasted. Immediately remove from heat and spoon toasted coconut flakes into a bowl to cool. (You can also toast them in the oven, but I find that when using the oven they don’t toast as evenly, usually, the flakes on the outer edge start to burn before the flakes in the middle have toasted. Just use the method you are most comfortable with.)
2. Decorate each cookie with toasted coconut, it will stick to the date caramel layer nicely.

Carob “Chocolate” Drizzle

1. In a small jar, mix together melted 3½ tablespoons coconut oil and 3 tablespoons carob powder. Stir well. Drizzle the carob “chocolate” sauce over each cookie.
2. Chill cookies and then serve! Cookies are best stored in the fridge. Or, for long-term storage, you can freeze them. They will hold together nicely at room temp for the day – like in a lunch box, though the caramel will stick to things.

Recipe Notes:

• AIP version: use cocoa/cacao powder instead of carob powder.
• Makes approximately 2 dozen cookies (24 cookies). Each cookie has an estimated 138 calories, 12 grams of fat, 15 carbs, and 1 gram of protein. Cookies made per batch will vary on how big or small you make the cookies. The cookies I made (pictured) are just under 2″ wide with a hole in the center.