Homeade Samoa Cookies

I ran across this recipe online for a copycat of Samoa Girl Scout Cookies.  I love Samoas, they are my favorite of the Girl Scout cookies.  The recipe looked great but very time consuming.  I thought I'd give it a try though.  The results were great, they tasted so yummy.  However, they did NOT taste like the original Samoa cookie and they were a lot of work. I brought them over for dessert when invited to dinner with some friends and everyone really liked them and couldn't stop eating them:)   Would I make them again?  Yeah, but maybe a few months from now by making the changes below but if you get ambitious, these won't let you down on taste.



Click HERE to get the whole recipe.  It's pretty long.  But I was thinking about ways I could make the recipe easier.  I would make them into bars instead of cookies.  Make dough as directed and use a roller to flatten dough and place on greased cookie sheet.  Refrigerate for 5 minutes then bake until crispy about 10 minutes.  Cool completely.  Make caramel as directed, add coconut and pour over cooked dough, put in refrigerator to cool.  Melt chocolate as directed and pour over caramel mixture.  Refrigerate to harden, then cut into bars. So much easier!  I'd call them Coconut Caramel Bars.  When I make the bars, I'll do another post. 
Below is the dough before cooked with holes in it. 

I used a juicer thingy (not sure name of it)


And the not so pretty, but yummy cookies!