It’s Girl Scout cookie season! Have you placed your order yet? With two nieces who are Girl Scout’s, ordering cookies is a must for us. Not that we need an excuse to order cookies, we would probably find ourselves outside of a grocery store buying cookies if we didn’t know someone selling them. Everyone has their favorite cookie. Ami is a huge Samoa fan while Tara loves Thin Mints. Another favorite of ours is Savannah Smiles, which they no longer sell. Anyone else completely devastated by this?!?!?! They are so good, why would they get rid of them! We’re thinking about starting a petition to bring them cake ;). Anyways, back to the topic of this post. One of our favorite things to do is take a popular and favorite treat of ours and create a cake/cupcake version of it. Samoas are one of those cookies we just had to turn into a cupcake. Can’t go wrong with a cupcake that has chocolate, caramel and coconut!
Our take on the Samoa cupcakes consist of a vanilla cupcake dipped in chocolate ganache and topped with caramel buttercream, toasted coconut and lastly drizzled with caramel and chocolate ganache. If you think that sounds amazing, just wait, there is one secret ingredient we have yet to mention. To take this cupcake the next level we baked a whole Samoa cookie into the cupcake! If you are making this recipe outside of cookie season or don’t have access to Samoa cookies, you can very easily make this cupcake without the cookie and it will still taste amazing. We believe some grocery stores sell a knock off version of the cookie so you can always try looking for them as a backup.
This recipe will make about 12-15 cupcakes depending on how big your cupcake tins are, how full you fill them and if you include the cookie or not. Each box of Samoas includes 15 cookies so one box will be enough. We hope you enjoy this recipe. If you make these cupcakes we would love to hear what you think. Comment below or tag us in your posts on Instagram and Facebook. Happy baking!
Chocolate Ganache
Ingredients
- 4.5 ounces semi-sweet, milk or dark chocolate finely chopped
- 3 ounces heavy cream
Instructions
- In a small sauce pan over medium heat bring cream just to a boil.
- Remove from heat and pour over chocolate. Let stand for 5 minutes without stirring.
- Stir with whisk until smooth. Let cool to room temperature.
Caramel Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 tbsp corn syrup
- 2/3 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 – 1 tsp salt depending on how salty you want it
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
Instructions
- Place the sugar, water and corn syrup in a sauce pan. Place over high heat and stir until the sugar begins to dissolve.
- Continue to boil without stirring until the mixture reaches a medium amber color and then remove from heat.
- Carefully whisk in the cream. The caramel will foam, but continue whisking and then add the salt, vanilla and butter until smooth.
- Transfer to a heat proof container to cool to room temperature.
Notes
Caramel Buttercream
Ingredients
- 3 cups (6 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
- 6 cup confectioners’ sugar sifted
- 2/3 cup caramel sauce
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp salt
Instructions
- In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter. Start off at a low speed and then gradually increase until the butter is light in color and
smooth. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the bowl as needed. - Add the sugar, one cup at a time, mixing at a low speed until fully incorporated before you add the next cup.
- Add the caramel sauce, vanilla and salt and beat at a low speed for
about 20 seconds. Increase the speed to high and beat for about 5 minutes until
the mixture is perfectly smooth and creamy. Stop the mixer a couple times to
scrape the bowl.
Samoa Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 1 box Samoa cookies
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cups granulated sugar
- 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°.
- Line cupcake tins with liners and place a Samoa cookie in the bottom of each liner.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitter with the paddle attachment, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt and stir together.
- Pour in the buttermilk and gently stir until just combined.
- Add in the eggs, vanilla and vegetable oil and mix until the batter comes together, but do not overmix.
- Fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 of the way full. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Allow the cupcake to cool in the tins for a few minutes before you remove them and then transfer to a wire rack to fully cool.
Toasted Coconut
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups shredded coconut
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Spread the coconut in an even layer on the parchment lined baking sheet.
- Bake for 5-10 minutes, stirring every few minutes so the coconut toasts evenly. The time it takes will determine on how much coconut you have and how thick the layer is. The coconut will be done when it is golden brown with a little white remaining.
To Assemble the Cupcakes
- Pour the chocolate ganache in a shallow bowl. Dip the top of each cupcake in the ganache, allow excess to drip off then transfer back to the wire rack so the ganache can set.
- Once the ganache is set, pipe the caramel buttercream on each cupcake. We used a large round tip to pipe ours.
- Top each cupcake with toasted coconut.
- Drizzle the caramel sauce and chocolate ganache on each cupcake.
- Enjoy!
