Samoan Bars

These are a homemade version of the Girl Scout cookie...pretty darn tasty!

Cookie:
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 pan. Cream together Butter and Sugar until fluffy. Mix in egg. salt, and vanilla. Stir in flour making a crumbly mixture. Press into pan and bake until light brown 20-25 minutes. Cool on wire rack in pan until completely cool.

Coconut-Caramel Center:
3 cups shredded coconut
14 oz of Caramels (I use 1 bag of Caramel bites because they melt faster)
1/4 tsp salt
3 and 1/2 TBSP milk
1 bag chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Spread coconut onto a baking sheet and toast in oven until lightly browned for about 10-15 minutes stirring every 2-5 minutes. Cool.

In a pot melt caramel with salt and milk. When smooth remove from heat and stir in coconut. Spread over cooled cookie base (This is more difficult than it looks. I spooned coconut onto base and then pressed with a greased piece of wax paper to pread evenly. Caramel is still hot so wear oven mitt when pressing with paper).

Allow to cool completely. Melt Chocolate chips (I melt Chocolate chips by putting them into a tupperware container and microwaving for 30 seconds at a time, stirring with a knife in between, until melted. Ususally takes 1 to 1.5 minutes).

Cut into bars and remove from pan. Dip the bottom of each bar into chocolate (Easiest just to turn bar over and spread on chocolate with a knife or spoon). Place on wax paper. Take remaining chocolate and drizzle over the top of bars. I cooled my bars on wax paper and a baking sheet in the freezer for 10 minutes, until the chocolate had hardened.

SO good! While they are time consuming because everything needs melted/baked, and then cooled...they are worth it!