Badge-worthy

Here are the little Thin Mint troops all lined up.

“Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place,” says the Girl Scouts website.

Making Girl Scout cookies from scratch will do the same thing, I learned.

Courage: Required to deal with the caramel / coconut mixture for the Samoas. It took some major muscle to mix together 3 cups of coconut with 14 oz of melted caramel (that may or may not have been slightly stale). It also took some courage to attempt to spread the...shall we say…chewy…caramel / coconut mixture onto the delicate shortbread cookies without breaking them. And probably more than anything, it took some serious courage to bite into these cookies after the caramel hardened…I mean…set. Serious courage.

Confidence: Required to give it another go with a different kind of cookie (Thin Mints) and know that it would be a success. The Samoas were a challenge with their many steps and labor. And homemade Samoas weren’t as sweet as their pre-packaged counterpart. (And who eats Samoas unless they’re looking for something super sweet?) And as you saw above, they were a bit…chewy. I’m amazed no one pulled their fillings out eating them. You could say these darn Samoas rattled my confidence. But, I shook it off, gathered it back up, and gave it another shot with Thin Mints, saying to myself the whole time, “You can do it, scout, you can do it.”

Character: Required to chew the Samoas in front of others. The boys (Zach and John-Paul) ate many. And each time they did, they ended up hovered over the sink trying to catch crumbs and strings of caramel while they worked the chewy caramel / coconut mixture in their mouths. They looked fairly ridiculous, but I’m not sure they cared.

Make the world a better place: Of course I would like to think I made the world a better place today. Maybe at least in the close vicinity of Drew Ave S. We’ll see which neighbors come get a few for themselves (ahem, Khanna / Newcoms and Prices).

What else did I take away from this “enriching experience?”

That I will give the Samoas another go someday, with a different recipe and with great attention to the caramel. Will probably make my own so that it will be softer.

That the $0.79 I paid for the Thin Mints recipe from Top Secret Recipes was a total steal. These are an exact replica—quite delicious, just like their pre-packaged counterpart.

Hmm, I think I deserve a badge.