Girl Scout Cupcakes: Samoas

In honor of Girl Scout Cookie season, I thought I would do a short series on Girl Scout Cookie inspired cupcakes. The Samoa cookies have always been my favorite and for good reason, toasted coconut, caramel and chocolate, what's not to love? I actually made a cupcake version a few years back that was good but I wasn't quite as happy with it as I would have liked so I thought what better place to start? The first time around, I used a chocolate cake, swapping it out this time for a delicious brown sugar pound cake from Martha Stewart. This seemed like a better balance of flavors with the cupcake having a similar taste to the butter cookie itself. From there I swirled on a decent amount of salted caramel buttercream, topped it with toasted coconut and a drizzle of chocolate. I'm very happy with the results this time around. Check back for Thin Mint and Tagalong cupcakes!

 

Samoas Cupcakes

Yield: 12 cupcakes

Printable Recipe

Brown Sugar Pound Cupcakes

Adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1 1/8cups packed light-brown sugar

2 large eggs, room temperature

1/3 cup buttermilk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition.

Reduce speed to low. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in 3 additions, alternating with buttermilk and ending with dry. Scrape sides of bowl. Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each 3/4 full.

Bake cupcakes until testers inserted into centers come out clean, about 23 minutes. Let cool in tins on wire racks.

Caramel Buttercream

Yields enough to generously frost 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
• 1/4 cup caramel sauce, recipe here or store bought if you prefer
• 1/4 cup heavy cream

Directions:

 In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream your butter and powdered sugar until fluffy and well combined. Add in your caramel sauce and heavy cream and continue to beat for about 3 minutes.

 Assembly

• 4 ounces toasted coconut
• 2 ounces chocolate

Frost your cupcakes generously with the caramel buttercream, top with your toasted coconut and drizzle tops with melted chocolate. I melted mine in the microwave for about 30 seconds and drizzled on with a piping bag.

 

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