Gestational Diabetes for All

I would be remiss if I did not recount my most infamous pinterest attempt to make everyone’s second favorite girls scout cookie, the Samoa. This was about two years ago, when I was pregnant. My friend Anna and I would hang out several times a week and attempt to cook. Mike would be travelling out of town on business and it was much more fun for me to cook with Anna rather than trying to cook for just myself. One day we thought it would be cool try this recipe for samoas . It looked doable - we would just have to make the cookie, cover with the coconut caramel topping and then dip the bottoms in chocolate, and drizzle a bit over them. Prep time: 2 hours including chilling and cook time of 15 min.

Only 2 hours… riiight. It started out all well enough, we bought all of the ingredients. First off, we had no idea what type of caramels to buy. Apparently there are multiple types of caramels and we had no idea what the difference was and which was best. Maybe that should have been a warning to not attempt this recipe. Anyway, we just grabbed one and went on our way. We got home and after dinner we made the dough (which took forever because we no baking skills) and put it in the fridge to chill. Of course, we also didn’t have cookie cutters, so we just cut the dough into squares and baked them. They turned out ok that way. They didn’t quite look like samoas but that didn’t matter.

Then we had to toast the coconut, melt the caramel and spread the mixture on the cookies. Sounded so simple but it was terrible. It was so sticky and messy and took FOREVER. I think this process alone took us two hours to do. We were so tired and cranky and after a while just started half assing this part.

Ok - halfway done with the recipe. We thought about calling it a night but by this time, we had gone so far, we figured we might as well finish it. Next step - dip the bottom of the cookies in the melted chocolate. Did I mention we had like 50 cookies? Hand dipping 50 freaking cookies in chocolate is exhausting - there go my dreams of opening a bakery (called Babycakes of course). We drizzled chocolate over the top of the cookies - yay, an easy step - and then let them cool.

After several hours of hard work - we could finally try the cookies… and they were AMAZING! So, so, so good - they actually tasted like the girls scout cookies. We were so happy and proud of ourselves for making these and I couldn’t wait for Mike to get home and try them.

In walks Mike, tired from his flight, so what better to cheer him up than some home made samoas. Right? Right? WRONG. He refuses to eat one and is furious that we made them because eating these is going to cause me to get gestational diabetes (ps. they didn’t). Anna and I are shocked of course. We packed up the cookies, shared them with our co-workers and later that weekend with Mike’s family. Everyone loved them. Eventually Mike had tried them and ended up eating his words - and several cookies. This recipe for gestational diabetes cookies, while absolutely delicious, took forever. From now on, I’ll stick to buying them.