samoa inspired gluten free cookies.

I am not a baker. I repeat, I am not a baker. It is way too much work to bake. Everything has to be so precise. You can't miss a step or do anything out of order. Way to much work for me. Sadly, gluten free baking is so much harder. You have to mix all these different types of flours together to make one that tastes normal... and most of them still don't. You have to make sure that you have just the right amount of xanthan gum per cup of flour you use... it is sticky and gross...ahh! But, I figure I have a long life ahead of me (cross my fingers) so I better have a few good baking recipes up my sleeve.

My roommate came home from work the other day with a few boxes of girl scout cookies in her hand. A small part of me wanted to cry (punch her). In all honesty, I'm not much of a sweet eater. I learned a long time ago to cut that out of my diet and pretty much have lived with that. It is a rare occasion that I want to indulge in desert or candy. Girl scout cookie time, might be one of them. Samoa cookies are amazing. If you haven't had them... please go out and find a girl scout ASAP and get yourself some... unless of course you are a glutard like me... in which case steer clear of those gluten filled cookies. Instead, you can just go ahead and make some gluten free samoa inspired cookies for yourself. 

I found the recipe on the cutest little blog ever, A Bicycle Built for Two. I just modified it a little. Here is what I did. 

for the cookie

1 cup softened butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups gluten free flour blend

1/2 tsp xanthan gum

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon milk

for the topping:

6 tbs butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup corn syrup

1/2 cup condensed milk

1/2 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups toasted coconut

1 bag of chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Add the coconut to a cookie sheet and toast for about 10 minutes. Make sure you are watching that very closely so it doesn't burn. I stirred it every couple minutes to be safe. Once that is done toasting. Take it out and let it cool. Turn the oven up to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl mix the butter and sugar. Then slowly add the flour, xanthan gum, salt and baking powder. Then add vanilla extract and milk. Once it is all stirred in together, I finished mixing it all with my hands until it turned into a perfect dough. Now, roll the dough out and cut out small circles with a cookie cutter or anything else that will make small circles (this part is where I failed miserably. I made my cookies entirely too big! Next time, I plan on purchasing a small cooking cutter to make the cookies look a lot closer to an actual samoa) So do that until all the cookie dough is gone. Once the circles are done, cutout the middles. I just used a straw and sort of pushed out the circles until they were big enough for my liking. You can always skip this step if it really doesn't matter to you. It will save you a lot of time and energy later on. 

Once the cookies are all cutout, add them to a cookie sheet that is covered with parchment paper. Bake for about 12 minutes until they are golden brown. Take them out and let them cool.

In a small microwavable bowl, melt about half of the chocolate chips. Stirring every 30-40 seconds. Once the cookies are cooled, spread the chocolate on the bottom with a spatula or knife and place the cookie chocolate side up back on the parchment paper and cool in the refrigerator. 

While the chocolate is setting, in a saucepan over medium heat, add the butter, sugar and corn syrup. Don't stop stirring that. Once it has been brought to a boil, let it boil for about 4-5 minutes. Turn the heat down and stir in the condensed milk. Continue to stir for a few more minutes until it gets to be a pretty thick consistency. Once it has thickened add the vanilla and remove from heat. Pour that into a mixer and stir in the toasted coconut slowly. 

Once the chocolate has set, take them out of the refrigerator and add the topping using a knife. Then microwave the other half of the chocolate chips, again stirring every 30-40 seconds. Once the chocolate is melted, let them cool down a little then add them to a ziplock bag and cut a small hole in the corner of it and place a nice drizzle on the top. You can put them back in the refrigerator to let the drizzle and topping set for about 5-10 minutes. Then they are ready to eat!

As you can see, my drizzle is a hot mess! By the end of making this, I was tired and well, over it. Next time, I hope for this cookie to not only taste as good as it does, but for it to look even better!

xoxo

katy 

*Make sure you always double check all your ingredients to make sure they are 100% gluten free.