No Bake Samoa Cookies (Homemade, Girl Scout Copycat)

No bake samoa cookies, with a chewy buttery base, caramel coconut topping, and rich chocolate coating, are a delicious Girl Scout copycat cookie with only 5 ingredients, a melt-in-your-mouth texture, and high in fiber and iron.

These no bake samoa cookies are delicious with a buttery shortbread base, melted chocolate base and drizzle and fresh coconut caramel topping. These dairy free no bake cookies are easy to make precisely because you don't have to use the oven, and use only a few ingredients that are high in healthy benefits.

These homemade samoa cookies are only one of a long list of Girl Scout copycat cookies as well as more commercial brands that I offer as recipes on my blog. I have a healthy recipe of delicious Entenmann's small vegan chocolate chip cookies. I also have a recipe for milano cookies and Girl Scout copycat thin mint cookies.

Jump to:

• What Is a Samoa Cookie?
• Main Ingredients
• How to Make
• Recipe Tips
• Substitutions
• FAQS
• More Copycat Dessert Recipes
• 📖 Recipe

What Is a Samoa Cookie?

A Samoa cookie is a round, buttery shortbread base topped with a layer of creamy caramel, sprinkled with toasted coconut, and dipped and drizzled with dark chocolate. The cookie was made famous in 1970s by the Girl Scouts, a USA-based youth girls' organization, when they sold the cookie during their annual food drive.

How do Samoa Cookies Taste?

Samoa cookies have a strong caramel and coconut flavor, with a chocolate finish. One bite and the coconut and caramel become a candy that has both a crunch and a melty texture. The chocolate base makes the whole cookie taste like a candy bar.

Main Ingredients

Dates: Full of iron and fiber, as well as add sweet flavor and binding. I used Medjool, but you can use the kind you can find. Look in your grocer's produce area for packaged dates, not dried.

Maple Syrup: A sweetener with a healthier panel than sugar so we can use less brown sugar.

Nut Butter: This ingredient is important as a binder and instead of processed oil. I have made these with cashew butter but any flavor works.

Shredded coconut: Use shredded coconut that is unsweetened and as fresh as you can buy it.

Chocolate: I use chocolate chips but you can also chop chocolate. I use Enjoylife chips for their clean ingredient panel, or HU gems.

How to Make

Step 1: Bake the shredded coconut for 5 minutes until brown. Drop the dates in just boiled water for 3 minutes to soften enough to pit them.

Step 2: Make the cookies by processing the browned shredded coconut and dates into a sticky mixture. I used a food processor but a blender will also work.

Step 3: Press the mixture into a mold or the bottom of a cupcake pan. Chill while you make the caramel center.

Step 4: Put the nut butter and maple syrup in a pyrex measuring cup and microwave for 15 seconds, stir until smooth. Pour on chilled cookies.

Step 5: Sprinkle more browned coconut on cookies and drizzle with chocolate.

Step 6: Store Cookies in a sealed container at room temperature for 4 days or freeze for three months.

Recipe Tips

Tip #1: Make sure the Medjool dates are fresh and soft. Find them packaged in the produce section of the grocery store, and always check the date. Before use in this recipe, drop them into just-boiled water for 5 minutes to soften them up, then pit.

Tip #2: Make sure the shredded coconut is fresh for best flavor, and from a reputable company such as Bob's Red Mill and Let's Do Organic.

Tip #3: To produce the classic iconic flat chocolate base found on the original Samoa cookie, dip and place the cookie immediately on wax paper. Parchment paper might work but I find wax works better. Once the chocolate is set, peel the cookie off the paper.

Substitutions

Replace the dates. Dates are pretty crucial to this recipe for binding the coconut and chewy sweet flavor. But if you can't access dates, you can replace them with rolled oats and maple syrup.

Instead of dates, stir 5 tablespoon of rolled oats and 3 tablespoon of maple syrup together in a bowl, and fold in the toasted shredded coconut as you would the dates. You don't need a food processor for this though if you use oats, just bring the mixture together in a bowl.

Maple syrup. Instead of maple syrup in the caramel layer, you can use date paste or date syrup, or even monksyrup.

The shredded coconut and chocolate can't be substituted, but any type of chocolate bar or chips can be used.

FAQS

How Healthy Are Homemade Samoa Cookies

Samoa cookies are relatively healthy as cookies go with 2 grams of protein and fiber each, and only 4 grams of sugar. The sweet flavor and texture of the cookie comes primarily from fresh dates which have a highly nutritious composition, including potassium and iron, and antioxidants which fight off disease. [source]

The other prominent ingredient in samoa cookies is shredded coconut. The shredded nature helps the cookie bind the dates into the soft chewy texture found identical to the processed commercial version. And raw coconut brings an extraordinarily nutritious profile to the cookie, including cholesterol control, weight loss support, digestion help and blood sugar stabilization. [source]

Why did they change the name of Samoa cookies?

The Girl Scout's recently had to change the name to Caramel Delites because the Girl Scouts switched manufacturers, and the original manufacturer of Samoa cookies had a federal trademark on the name.

More Copycat Dessert Recipes

• Entenmann copycat Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Girl Scout copycat Thin Mints
• Entenmann copycat Milano Cookies
• Homemade Hostess Chocolate Cupcakes
• Hostess copycat Ring Ding Cakes (Ding Dongs)

If you tried this recipe or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!

📖 Recipe