Girl Scout Cookie Recipe!

I've been on a major baking kick for the last month or so. Not only have I been trying out some new baked goods recipes, I've also been trying some new main dishes too. I wasn't too thrilled with my chicken pot pie, but I was really pleased with the chicken fajitas I made last weekend. You win some, you lose some I guess. Here's the recipe for the fake Caramel deLite Girl Scout cookies that I made a couple weekends ago. They're really good, but they are very time intensive. I probably won't make them very often. :)

Caramel deLites
recipe from Once Upon a Plate

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. vanilla extract
up to 2 T. milk

Preheat oven to 350 F. Cream together butter and sugar in large bowl. Mix in flour, baking powder and salt at a low speed. Next, add in vanilla and milk. Only add in enough milk to make the dough come together without being too sticky. Roll dough out in 2 or 3 batch between two sheets of parchment paper, to about 1/4 inch thick. Use a 1 1/2 inch round cookie cutter to cut out the rounds, then place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Using a large round piping tip (like for frosting), cut a hole in the middle of each cookie. Bake cookies 10-12 minutes, until cookies are lightly golden brown around the edges. Cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet, allowing them to firm up, before transferring them to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Topping:
3 cups shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)
12 ounces chewy caramels
1/4 t. salt
8 ounces dark or semisweet chocolate (chocolate chips will work also)

Preheat oven to 300 F. Spread coconut evenly onto a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes, stirring every five minutes to prevent burning. Cool on baking sheet, stirring occasionally.

Unwrap caramels and place in a large microwave safe bowl with milk and salt. Cook on high 3-4 minutes, stopping every so often to stir caramels. When smooth, fold in toasted coconut with a spatula. Use the spatula to spread the topping onto the cooled cookies, using about 2-3 tablespoons per cookie. If the topping starts to harden up, stick it in the microwave briefly to soften it up again.

While the coconut topping is setting up, melt the chocolate in the microwave for about 45 seconds, stirring frequently to prevent scorching. Dip the bottom of each cookie into the chocolate and set onto a new parchment sheet. Transfer all remaining chocolate into a piping bag and drizzle finished cookies. (You may need to melt a little more chocolate for this part.) Let chocolate set completely before peeling them off the parchment paper and storing in an airtight container. (Mine took overnight to completely harden up, but it could just be the humidity or whatever in my house?)

Makes 3 /12 to 4 dozen cookies.

Yummmmm.......