Samoas Cookie Bars - Chocolate Caramel Coconut Shortbread Bars

A rich buttery cookie base topped with chewy caramel coconut and covered in silky chocolate. These bars go great with a big cup of coffee.

I will be honest... I am a Canadian girl who has never tried the famous Samoas Cookies by the American Girl Scouts. I've seen a lot of recipes based around them for awhile now, and I just had to try my own take on this flavour combination. The result was amazing!

I'm really big on doing everything from scratch, so I've included the caramel sauce as well. If you happen to have a bag of store bought caramels lying around, you can swap those in instead.

Samoas Cookie Bars

Yield: 24 bars

INGREDIENTS FOR COOKIE BASE
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

INGREDIENTS FOR CARAMEL COCONUT
3 cups shredded coconut
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

INGREDIENTS FOR CHOCOLATE
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons heavy cream

DIRECTIONS FOR COOKIE BASE
Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 9×13-inch baking pan, or line with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter, until fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla extract. Working at a low speed, gradually beat in flour and salt until mixture is crumbly, like wet sand. The dough does not need to come together. Pour crumbly dough into prepared pan and press into an even layer.

Bake for 20 minutes, until base is set and edges are lightly browned. Cool completely on a wire rack before topping.

Lower oven temperature to 300F.

DIRECTIONS FOR CARAMEL COCONUT
Spread coconut evenly on a parchment-lined baking sheet (preferably one with sides) and toast at 300F for about 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes, until coconut is golden. Cool on baking sheet, stirring occasionally. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, corn syrup, water and salt. Bring to a boil over medium heat and cook until syrup turns dark gold.

Working carefully, stir in cream and vanilla. Caramel will start to steam and harden when you add the cream – continue to cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until caramel is smooth.

Quickly add in the toasted coconut and mix well. Immediately spread over cooled cookie base in a nice even layer. Let cool until set. When cooled, cut into bars.

DIRECTIONS FOR CHOCOLATE
Put chocolate in a microwave safe bowl; drop the butter onto the chocolate and pour in the heavy cream.

Melt the chocolate mixture in the microwave on high heat in 30 second intervals, stirring thoroughly each time. It should take roughly a minute and half for the chocolate to be completely melted.

Pick up each cookie bar and either spread the chocolate on the bottoms with a knife, or dip the bottoms into the chocolate. Place the bars right side up / chocolate side down on a clean piece of parchment or wax paper.

Transfer all remaining chocolate into a piping bag or a sandwich bag with the corner snipped off, and drizzle bars with chocolate to finish.

Let chocolate set completely before storing in an airtight container. You can put the parchment paper on a cookie sheet and transfer the bars to the freezer for 10 minutes if you are in a hurry to eat them as we were!