My Girl Scout Cookie Confessional

And a Recipe to Tame Your Relentless Sweet Tooth

This weekend while away on a trip with my husband to the sweet little town of Stanford, Kentucky, I was on a jog and happened to pass by a house with a green and white lawn sign that brought a smile to my sweat-coated face.

It read, “It’s Cookie Time!”

Yes, indeed it is.

Across the country, devoted scouts are dusting off their sashes and polishing up their smiles because it’s Girl Scout Cookie Season. And let’s be honest, the Girl Scouts nailed it with the timing of their campaign. As I wrote last week, many of us are currently hitting the cold and unforgiving Winter Wall, and all those GS marketing execs know it. If ever we were susceptible to prepackaged, processed sweets, good heavens, it’s now.

Please don’t get me wrong. That is no judgement upon the Girl Scouting Community; they saw an opportunity and took it. Besides, I’ve made no secret around here about my vulnerability in regards to cookies. Rarely has the GS Cookie Season passed by without me laying hands on at least a couple boxes of Thin Mints (fun fact: they’re vegan!) The truth is, seeing that lawn sign this weekend, brought back a vivid memory from my childhood that might provide an early glimpse into my life of my cookie obsession.

When I was in fourth grade, my family moved into a new housing development, which meant that I had to switch elementary schools, which also meant that I had to find new friends. And to my surprise, it was a pretty easy undertaking. Our new neighborhood was bursting with kids, and I quickly became besties with a girl who lived one street over from my own. Her name was Carrie.

We were a bit of an odd couple, you could say. In every way that I was unsure and insecure, Carrie knew her mind and was confident presenting it. The youngest in her family, her parents and older sisters doted on her. I, too, was the youngest of my parents three children, but my brothers could never be accused of doting on me. Calling me names, giving me wedgies, putting me in headlocks? Absolutely. But doting? Never in a million years.

The differences extended to our appearances as well. Carrie had shoulder-length dark hair, glasses, stood a good foot shorter than me, and had all the small-boned fragility of a hummingbird. I, on the other hand, was an average height for my age, had long blonde hair, no glasses, and, shall we say, a stockier build than Carrie, more akin to a bulldog than a hummingbird.

But one afternoon, I realized that our greatest difference of all was in our attitudes towards Girl Scout Cookies. On that fated day we were playing up in her room, when she suddenly hopped up from our Barbie scene and fluttered over to a bag on her dresser. “Oh, I forgot, my mom got these for me!” With a dramatic flourish, she reached into the bag and pulled out her very own box of Girl Scout cookies.

These weren’t the plain Jane shortbread Scotties or the overhyped Thin Mints (which I eventually came around to in my adult years), but these were Tagalongs: a generous portion of sweet peanut butter spread over a crunchy cookie base and coated in a thin layer of chocolate. These were my favorite Girl Scout cookies and to have owned my very own box of them was a dream I didn’t dare entertain. Yes, my family purchased Girl Scout Cookies (and lot of them) each year, but they were shared as a family, doled out after meals or as a before bed snack. But there in front of me stood Carrie with my Girl Scout Cookie dream held casually in her hand.

“Let’s play for a bit longer and then we can have some,” she chirped before nestling down by the Barbies again. But my concentration was hijacked. While I dressed Barbie in and out of outfits and talked her in and out of arguments with Carrie’s Skipper, all I could think about was that delicious box of cookies now lying on the floor behind my friend. I kept up the charade for the next 30 minutes, until Carrie finally leaned over to me and whispered, “Now let’s have some cookies.”

Giddiness swelled up in me as we got cozied up in her closet, our go-to location for top-secret activities like gossiping about classmates, gushing about crushes, and now, presumably, gorging ourselves on cookies. With a slow slide of her feathery thin finger, she broke the seal of the orange paperboard box. As she eased the plastic tray of chocolate-covered treasures from their packaging, I had visions of us stuffing cookie after cookie between our crumby lips till we’d polished off the whole container, giggling at each other the whole time.

Carrie reached down and plucked the first cookie out of the tray and handed it to me with a conspiratorial grin. Thinking this was just an appetizer, I devoured it in two bites and sat staring at the package like a dog eyeing a ham bone. But while I inhaled my ration, Carrie was working methodically at pecking away the outer edges of the cookie till the chocolate rim disappeared, revealing the neat layers of peanut butter and shortbread inside. Then she took tiny nibbles across the sweet expanse until a few microscopic crumbs were left in her hand, which she picked up with her finger and thumb and delicately dropped on the tip of her tongue.

“Yum, that was soooo good,” she whispered, and then to my utter dismay, she slipped the tray of cookies back into their box, tucked it on a low shelf in her closet, and looked up at me through her owlish glasses. “Okay, let’s keep playing,” she said with a grin. She wasn’t trying to be mean. She’d simply had enough and was happy to start playing again. That’s when I realized there were people in the world who liked Girl Scout Cookies and those who loved them.

And then there were people like me.

As soon as I was old enough to have my own money, every winter I’d hunt down the local Girl Scout dealer like a junkie looking for a fix. I did this for years. And I wasn’t picky. I’d buy from little girls in my neighborhood or from the kids hawking them outside of Walmart. I once paid an extortionate amount for a box of Savannahs (now unimaginatively named Peanut Butter Sandwiches) from a door-to-door salesgirl in Boulder, Colorado; I seriously doubted she was an actual scout but she had the goods so I didn’t ask questions.

But in recent years, I’ve decided to ease up on my sugar intake. I’m not sure that I’ll ever totally kick the habit, but when I want something sweet now, I usually try to throw a few healthy things in along with it so all isn’t lost.

So if your Girl Scout Cookie stock is low or you’re looking for a treat with a little nutrient boost to it, check out my recipe below for my Mocha Peanut Butter Bites (aka Gorgeous Globes of Goodness.) They’ve got the chocolate and peanut butter flair from those dreamy Tagalongs of my childhood but also a smattering of oatmeal and chia seed to keep your digestive system happy. It’s a win for everyone!

Mai’s Gorgeous Globes of Goodness (If They Were a Girl Scout Cookie Name: Mocha Peanut Butter Bites)

Ingredients:

3/4 c. chunky peanut butter (Okay, I have a few things to say here. I really recommend using peanut butter that is strictly peanuts and salt with this recipe, friends. Forgive me if that sounds elitist. And I know that means you’ll have the whole stirring-the-oil-into-the butter debacle when you open the jar, but it also means no added oils or sugars your body doesn’t need. Remember, you can do hard things! Also, I haven’t made this recipe with your standard Jif-type peanut butter, so I can’t make any promises as to how it will turn out. If you’re willing to take that risk, then go for it. Lastly, if you have an aversion to chunky peanut butter for some bizzaro reason—I promise I’m not judging you…at least not a lot—then feel free to use creamy.)

1/2 c. honey (I like to use raw, local honey here because it makes me feel righteous, like the sugar content in the honey will just synthesize into good vibes in my bloodstream instead of whatever sugar normally does. But you can use whatever honey you like.)

1/4 c. coffee (My husband usually makes a carafe of coffee each morning and there’s always leftovers lingering about so this is what I use. My body isn’t a huge fan of caffeine so I just add it for flavor. But if you really wanted a boost, you could always add espresso instead. Yikes, that’s living on the edge!)

1 tsp. vanilla

3 c. quick (not instant) oats

3/4 c. dark chocolate, roughly chopped (Or if you aren’t finicky about your chocolate like I am, you could just use chocolate chips.)

2 tbsp. chia seeds

pinch of salt

Instructions:

In a medium bowl, stir together the peanut butter, honey, coffee, and vanilla until smooth. If you can’t be bothered with the arm workout and you have a small, bullet-type blender, just toss the ingredients in there and blitz it for 30 seconds or so.

In a large bowl, combine oats, chocolate, chia seeds, and salt. Stir just enough to evenly distribute all the goodies. Then pour your wet ingredients in and mix.

Confession time: I have a serious—and I mean SERIOUS—aversion to having dirty, sticky, or messy hands. Something about it sends shivers up my spine like nails on a chalkboard. (Anyone else out there have the same issue?)

In order to keep my hands as pristine as possible, I like to scoop out the honey-oaty concoction with a large ice cream scoop (we do things big around here) and drop it onto a cookie sheet, slide the balls into the freezer, and let them cure there for about 30 minutes. Afterwards, I pull them out, press them into gorgeous globes of goodness (with little to no mess on my hands,) slide them into a mason jar, and store them in the fridge. Then, whenever my sweet tooth gets unbearable, I pull out one of these and tame it. (Or, if my kids get to them first, I stare at the bottom of an empty jar and curse under my breath. So you might want to be prepared for that scenario—cue the box of Thin Mints hidden in your underwear drawer!)

Enjoy!

Makes 18 balls.

Now two questions for you, friend:

1. What’s your favorite Girl Scout Cookie (if you’re into that sort of thing?)

2. What’s your go-to treat when you want something sweet but don’t want to completely abandon yourself to depravity?

Let us know your answers down in the comments below!