This week, we head once more across the Atlantic to the cheerfully-named town of Muskogee, Oklahoma.
The musically-minded of you may know the name from the famous Merle Haggard country tune ‘Okie From Muskogee’, but for the rest of us it’s a place of which we know precisely nothing.
Well, that’s all about to change when I tell you that here, in December 1917, the local Girl Scout Troop, the Mistletoes, became the very first to sell the famous Girl Scout Cookies.
If you’ve watched any American films or TV in the last 20-odd years, you’ll probably be familiar with the concept of a gaggle of uniformed girls knocking on doors, offering to sell boxes of cookies for charity, and how much the arrival of these cheery visitors is anticipated.
Each troop is allowed one cookie drive per year, and most of these occur between January and April, making it a landmark in most cookie enthusiasts’ calendars.
Historically, troops would sell home-baked cookies to raise funds for new clubhouses, or things for the school, but as the popularity increased, national bakeries were drafted in to cope with demand. These days it’s a multi-million dollar business, but its sales force still comprises groups of girls knocking door-to-door and filling their quotas.
I think it’s a fine testament to the spirit of such organisations that they have resisted the urge to simply start selling these cookies in supermarkets and shops for a percentage, which would undoubtedly make much more money.
They have recently started selling online, but this is still organised on a local basis, so each troop member can manage her online sales personally, and generally it’s still the case that the only way to get one’s mitts on a box of Girl Scout cookies is to wait for the doorbell to ring at the start of the year.
And what a terrific scheme it is for the girls; learning money management, interacting with members of the public, and appreciating the pleasure of the selfless act.
Starting back in the first years with only a few simple biscuits, there are now, officially, 28 varieties of cookie available, all with tempting names such as Peanut Butter Patties, Thanks-A-Lots, Lemonades, Tagalongs and Do-Si-Dos.
By far the most popular cookie is the Thin Mint, a great-looking chocolate-coated mint sandwich which, to my eye, looks rather like a Viscount or Yo-Yo, if you remember those (I bet you’re hankering after a biscuit now, aren’t you?) Thin Mints come in boxes of 38, at $4 per box, and the last documented statistic informs me that a staggering 50 million boxes were sold in 2013.
Big business indeed. The second favourite cookie, the Samoa, is the one that really caught my eye, and it’s these that I knew I had to make.
A chewy caramel, loaded with toasted coconut, sits atop a ring of shortbread, the whole thing dipped in and drizzled with chocolate. It’s a quite marvellous cookie, and you must try making these.
I may return to the Girl Scout cookie repertoire again, but for now, let’s ‘do our best’ and make a batch of our own Samoas.
Samoa Biscuits
(makes about 20)
For the shortbread:
300g butter, room temperature
100g unrefined golden caster sugar, plus a little extra
450g plain flour
50g ground rice
A pinch of Maldon salt
For the caramel:
380ml double cream
400g white granulated sugar
240ml golden syrup
55g unsalted butter
The seeds from one vanilla pod
A pinch of Maldon salt
For the topping:
400g desiccated coconut
For the chocolate:
150g dark chocolate (at least 70 per cent cocoa)
150g milk chocolate
Extras:
Sugar thermometer
Baking parchment
Greaseproof paper
Piping bags
First, make the shortbread; heat the oven to 150°C / Gas 2. In the bowl of a mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Sift in the flour and ground rice, along with a pinch of salt, and bring the mixture together to form a soft dough.
Roll the dough out to 1cm thickness, and cut neat 7cm rings using pastry cutters. Bake the rings for about an hour or until set and a lovely pale gold colour. Next, toast the coconut; raise the oven temperature to 180ºC / Gas 4. Spread the desiccated coconut evenly onto a baking tray lined with baking parchment.
Bake the coconut for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently and watching like a hawk, until it is deeply and evenly toasted. Remove from the oven and tip into a bowl to cool.
Set a couple of tablespoons aside for sprinkling. Now, make the coconut caramel; place the ingredients in a large pan set over a low heat and cook, stirring gently, until the sugar has dissolved and the butter has melted. Increase the heat to medium-high and allow the mixture to come to the boil without stirring.
As soon as the caramel has reached 120ºC, immediately remove it from the heat, stir well, and pour into a large metal bowl. Add the toasted coconut. Pipe or spoon the coconut caramel onto the shortbread rings and allow it to set completely. As the cookies set, sprinkle them with the reserved coconut.
Next, melt the two chocolates in a bowl set over simmering water.
Dip the bottoms of the cookies in the chocolate, shake off any excess, and place them on a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper. Use a fork or small piping bag todrizzle the tops with a little extra melted chocolate.
Let the cookies sit until the chocolate hardens fully before serving.
