Making Original Girl Scout Cookies – Take Two

welcome back everybody it’s Firefly withGirl Scouts of Alaska again last week wetried making the original Girl Scoutcookie and we posted the recipe for ourwebsite as well hopefully you had achance to try it out if not you’ll get aquick review with some alternative tipsI asked around and got some ideas fromother people so even though the firsttime did it turn out super great and thedough was really sticky I’m gonna giveit a go we’ll try some different thingsI didn’t see any tips on the Girl Scoutswe’ll ask a Facebook page but if you endup trying it on your own after this feelfree to still let us know we’d love tohear what worked well for you so it’sall the same ingredients we’re justgonna do the steps a little bitdifferently the first thing I’m gonna dois get my half a cup of butter out ofthe freezer I heard that this recipewould probably work better if I usereally really cold butter last time Iused a wire that had been sitting on mycounter so it was really soft and thatmade add into the stickiness so I’vealready sanitized my work surface I’vealready washed my hands so I’m going tograb my butter out of the freezeralright and if you remember we creamedthe butter with the sugar that’s thefirst step because this is really reallyhard it’s not soft like the last timewhat I’m gonna do is use a cheese graterand grate it into my mole and I’m goingto try to do it quickly so that my handdoesn’t warm off the butter too muchbecause my hand is a lot warmer and thenfrozen butter the other thing I’ve heardis that this recipe probably works bestif you use real butter instead ofmargarine again I’m using not realbutter it’s just what I have in myfridge and butter seems to be hard tocome by nowadays so whatever you haveI’m sure will work fineyou want to going to want to be carefulas you get closer to the end of yourstick you don’t want to end up grindingyour fingers on your grater so Iwouldn’t feel very good you can alwaysask a parent for help at this point tooif you’re worried about scraping yourfingers I just like to keep turning iton different sides so that I haven’twant to grab on toall right and then it gets to the pointwhere it’s a really small piece youdon’t need to worry about gradingeverything you’ll probably have somebutter stuck on the inside so I like tostick my hand on the inside and kind ofwipe down whatever got left in there thesame thing happens to me with cheese soall right so this is what my butterlooks like it actually kind of lookslike cheese and my my hands are verybuttery so I’m gonna wash my hands andthen I’m going to come back and I’ll putthe sugar inokay so now that my hands are clean mybowl is ready for sugar and we need halfa cup of sugar and remember you want totry to get it as level as you canI guess I’ll need to add sugar to mygrocery list all right so now as we stirit together one of the tips that I heardis to not over stir it because I don’twant the butter to get too warmremember we want it to stay cold becausethat should help it be a little bit lesssticky and the same as last time I’mjust kind of squishing it against thesides trying to get it mixed togetherall rightthat’s probably pretty good it’s not asmixed as last time but again I thinkthat’s gonna help us with our stickinessfactor later all right so we’re gonnastart adding in our other ingredientsthe next thing we’re gonna add is ouregg and this is another trick that Ilearned so just like last time I’m gonnacrack it on the side of the table andput it into this bowl to just get alittle crack started and then shove yourfingers in the crack and make it biggerI’m gonna pause and wash my hands againall right my hands are clean and I’mgonna eat my egg for it to go in hereyou could use a whisk if you have onethat’s what I’m using you could use afork that would probably work just aswell or even a spoon if that’s what youhave all right and another trick I heardis that eggs were a lot smaller back inthe time when this recipe was firstdeveloped which is 1922 and so we havemuch bigger eggs now you know you oftenbuy a carton of those large white eggsor whatever kind of family happens togetthey’re probably bigger than the onesthat they had back then so I’m actuallynot going to use all of the egg thistime I’m going to take a tablespoon andI’m gonna put in two tablespoons worthand I didn’t quite fill that one up itkind of slid out so I’m going to put atiny bit more in but not a full searchokay so I do have some egg left over Ican use that maybe for make somescrambled eggs tomorrow for breakfastthat would be good and then I’m gonnastart stirring this end gently all rightand then we need milk we need 1tablespoon of milk so I’m actually gonnause that same tablespoonyouoops slopped a little bit but I thinkit’s close enoughit wasn’t overflowing when it stoppedout so I think it’ll be okayall right let’s see good nothing thereegg probably vanilla next right andvanilla B only need a half a teaspoonwhich again is really not very much so Ispoil a little bit maybe on purposebecause I like none okay all right Idon’t want to agitate this too muchbecause again I don’t want to get reallysticky right away so I’m just gonna stirit a little bit and then I’m gonna addour flour and baking powder and I’mgonna use my cup Cup because that’sexactly and again it’s really helpful ifyou can use your finger to level offyour measuring cup so that you get aneven cup on the table but that’s okaycuz I’m gonna clean up afterwards youneed one teaspoon of baking powder againmake sure it’s baking powder and notbaking soda those are different thingsyou can use this nice little edge andthe can to make sure that it’s even[Music]great that’s all of our ingredients andnow I just need to stir it together myhope is that it won’t be quite as stickydon’t be a little bit easier to dealwith this timedon’t forget to scrape the edges of yourbowl everyone stir well to get thataccumulated butter and flour andeverything else that gets stuck so it’sdefinitely looking less sticky so far Ithink a lot of that has to do with thebutter being nice and cold and I’mtrying to kind of use the edge of myspoon to squish things together whoopsif you fling some out of the bowl that’sokay because you’ve already wiped offyour your table or your counter whateverwork surface you have so far this isactually looking kind of crumbly butit’s not looking sticky so it’sdifferent so far even just making thoselittle changesand because it looks kind of dry andcrumbly I think I’m gonna add a tiny bitmore egg just so it has a little bitmore liquid but again I’m not gonna usethe whole thing so this is like it’shard to show you but this is like maybehalf a tablespoon more that I’m puttingin there so really not very much moreand if it gets really stuck to yourspoon you can always use your finger andscrape it off into the bowl or a spatulaif you prefer I just know since my handsare clean I can use my fingers all rightso already this I’m glad I put the extraegg in there this is looking a lotbetter it’s not super sticky it’s stillI mean it still is sticky but it’s alittle bit thicker and definitely notover all the same really stick toabsolutely everything consistency thatwas last time so the other change I’mgonna do this time is I’m gonna put itstraight into the freezer for probablyclose to an hour I put it in the fridgefor half an hour to start last time butI don’t think it was quite long enoughso I’m gonna put it into the freezerthis time and leave it there for I’llprobably check on it in 45 minutes but Idon’t think I’ll actually end up takingit out until after an hour or so so I’llput it in there and we’ll come in checkand see how it does later I got a lot ofegg on my table I was kind of settingdown my measuring instruments and mystirring utensils as I went so I’m gonnaactually take a pause I’ve alreadycleared some of my table off but then Irealized it’s kind of gross so I’m gonnaclear it off the rest of the way and goout and sanitize it again you may chooseto do that too even if you don’t make abig mess it’s just a good practice tomake sure that you have a clean kitchenworkspace alright my table is completelyclean I put all of the ingredients awaythat I don’t need anymore and I alsowent ahead and sprayed it down withdisinfectant spray andreally good and then I washed my handsbecause I knew that my surface was dirtyat least with some egg and again youdon’t want to get that near your mouthbecause that could make you sick it’salso just good to have a clean workspacewhen you move on to the next part of theproject which will be rolling out ourdough all right so at this point thebatter has been in the freezer for aboutan hour and a half or so and it’s thinkit’s fine that it’s been chilling alittle bit longer than my firstanticipated I have my silicone mat weused last time this is what I’m going touse to roll about our flour for us to beable to punch cookies out of if youdon’t have one of these that’s okayI recommend maybe parchment paper or waxpaper if you have it just something sothat you can pick it up and put it on toa cookie sheet so it doesn’t get stuckto your table on between so let me grabthe batter in the freezer now that iswhat our batter looks like grab aspatula this is way less sticky alreadymight even be too cold but I think it’llbe all right trying to scrape out asmuch as I can from the body I’m actuallygonna slide this over because I’m gonnaput some flour down on my mat seem tohelp last time to keep it from stickingthis is very cool you probably don’tneed to leave it in the freezer as longas I didI’m taking my rolling pin just like Imentioned last time you can probably uselike the big glass bottle if you don’thave a rolling pin I’m gonna put someflour in the dough I just put some onthe rolling pin as well well it’sdefinitely stickier than I thought itwas it’s certainly not as sticky as itwas the last time but it stilldefinitely needs a lot of flour so I’mgonna even more cuz it’s sticking to myrolling pin again oops see I just got abig chunk of it stuck to the pin thathappens sometimes and it’s okay I’m justgonna keep changing directions make sureit’s mostly even everywhere[Music]alright that rolled out way better andit’s still really cold so it’s entirelypossible that I might be able to cutsome pieces over at this point um Idon’t really want to risk it thoughbecause it’s been doing so good so whatI’m gonna do is grab a cookie sheet I’mjust going to slide this on and I’mgonna put it in the freezer for a littlewhile so that it can chill in this formthis is why having something like Istill come at or a parchment paper orsomething like that is really easybecause you can just pick the wholething up and put it on the tray insteadof trying to scrape it off and settingit on alright so I just called my batterout of the freezer I’m at about 20minutes or so since I rolled it out andI did actually manage to find somesmaller cookie cutters this time I havea little triangle and a little heart butI’m gonna try out I think these willwork a little bit better um since thesecookies are probably three small thisamount of batter is supposed to makeabout three dozen which I don’t knowthat I’ll be able to make that many withthese cards but you will see so I’mgonna grab another cookie sheet so I canpunch these out and set them right ontoa cookie sheet I can use this one I canjust pull this part off like I didbefore and I’ll just start cutting themout and putting onI like to dip my cookie cutters intoflour so I get a little bit on thecutter itself it keeps it from stickingto the dough as much then you can justpunch it out Wow already this is workingso much betteryouand now I don’t have enough dough all inone spotto actually cut anymore out so I’m gonnapick up all of these pieces here androll out my dough againall right and I can feel that this isalready getting really sticky again andI don’t think I’m going to be able topunch out shapes and then actually pickthem up to put them on the trays yeah soI’m gonna pop this cart back in thefreezerthe rest of my cookies are actuallylooking really good they they came outreally easy they came off of the matpretty easy I’ve got some hurts andtriangles I might actually be able tomake a full three dozen once that doughfinishes freezing again so that I canpunch some more out so these mightactually be a pretty accurate size forcookies once I get all of the rest ofthe dough punched out I’m actually gonnaput these trays back in the freezer forabout 20 or 30 minutes before I put themin the oven if you remember last timethe cookies really puffed up a lot tothe point where my cats looked more likeslugs because they were just so expandedand they got so tall this time I’mhoping to get some cookies they’re alittle bit more compact they don’t raiseup quite so much so I’m hoping that if Ifreeze them after putting them into theshapes that I want then hopefullythat’ll keep it down a little bit sowe’ll see while I’m waiting for the verylast little bit of dough to freeze inthe freezer I am going to go ahead andpreheat my oven I also took the traysI’ve already cut out shapes and put themin my fridge to keep them cold for nowbecause I don’t want them to get toowarm while they’re sitting out and thenwe’ll end up probably not spreading andrising problem like we did the last timeso I’m going to go ahead and keep thesame temperature I have noticed recentlythat my oven the bottom rack it’s a lotharder I think it’s because of theheating element that’s in the bottom soI’m going to try to make sure that Irotate where the pans are this timeinstead of this rotating in 180 degreesI’m also going to switch shelves partway through I’m hoping that will give alittle bit more of an even donenessacross all of the cookiesso my oven is set to 375 degrees and itwill beep to let me know when it is atthe temperatureyounow when you really have just a littlebit left you can make a little ball withyour dough I’m just gonna press it intoone of your cookie cuttersI’m kind of thick so I’m gonna squish itout a little bit and my oven is now attemperature so these are ready to go nowI did mention that I wanted to keepthese in the freezer after they had beenshaped to hopefully prevent some of thatspreading out as well as going upbecause it raised a lot the last time Ihave two trays that are in the fridgeright now so I’m gonna put those intothe oven and I’ll put these ones intothe fridge and on to swap them out forthem because I really only have room fortwo pans and seven at a time anywaythe other thing we need to not forgetlike I did last time is the recipeactually calls for sugar to be sprinkledon top of the cookies so we’ll get intothat as soon as I clear an area and swapout my cooking pansokay so these are the first two that areready to go in the oven I just pull themout of the fridge so they’re still niceand cool we can’t forget about thissugar though and because I have twotrays with the same amount of cookieseven though they’re slightly differentshapes they’re about the same size soI’m going to try two different things onone tray I’m going to try sprinklingsome sugar on before putting them in theoven and the other chair may leave justno sugar on it as is put in the oven andthen as soon as I pull them out I’mgonna sprinkle some sugar on top just tosee which one works betterso I think it’s gonna be a little biteasier for me to sprinkle some sugar onthese hearts cuz they’re slightly biggerI’m doing my best to not get a whole loton the pan as I do this because I knowthat the sugar is going to melt andpossibly burn while these are in theovenall right so try to just do a littledusting on all of those it did get alittle bit on the pan but it’s okay it’snot like it’s a whole layer so I’m goingto go ahead and put both of these intothe oven and I’m going to set the timerfor three minutes this time because Iwant to rotate the pans and I want toswitch the shelves you want to make surethat I get to swap the ones that are onthe bottom so that they get to be on thetop because I know that for my oven thebottom part is definitely hot your ovenmight be differentall right so they’re looking pretty goodso far they are spreading a little bitbut they’re not raising up a whole bunchand they’re not spreading so much thatthey’re leaking into each other sooverall pretty good so I went ahead andswitched them and put the top one on thebottom and the bottom one on the top Ialso rotated the pans as I did so sohopefully we’ll get a nice even cook andbecause those are spreading a little bitmore than I expected even after havingthem in the fridge I’m gonna move theother two trays from my fridge into myfreezer well these ones finish just tosee if it makes any sort of a differenceto have it even colder when I go to cookthem these smells so good right now ohmy goshall right let’s see oh my gosh these arelooking so much better okaythese ones I’m actually gonna take outthese are the ones that need the sugarstill and the other ones fortunatelyactually need another minute so I’mgonna put the timer on for one minutewhile I put the sugar on these ones I’mgonna try to turn this you can kind ofsee what I’m doing so I’m just gonnasprinkle a little bit of sugar I’ll talkabout these warm ones now that they justcame out just to see which way I like itbetter I can get my nice cooling racksback out and so my tableand some hot pads so these on my tableso I can move a pan over hereeveryone I think is about ready to comeout – yeah so they fluffed up a littlebit but not nearly as much they reallyheld their shape a lot betteryou know at these ones with the sugar onthem I think I’m actually gonna leave Itook a few of them off to put them on acooling rack but I’m gonna leave themfor a couple minutes just to see if thesugar melts a little bit because I don’twant sugar to end up all over my tablefortunately the sugar didn’t really burnon here I think maybe because they wereonly in the oven for about seven minutesso that’s good less to clean upbaked on sugar is kind of a pain to haveto clean up so glad that worked out sowellokay so these are all of my cookies thatI did in the first batchremember the triangles I put the sugaron after they came out of the oven andthe hearts I put the sugar on before Iput them in the oven so you can alreadykind of see a difference just by lookingat themsugar is kind of more melted in herewhereas you can still kind of see thesugar crystals on the triangle so I’mjust going to taste one of each to seewhat I thinkthese turned out way better than lastweek’s they’re kind of soft on theinside which are like so the heart onesturned out really goodthe triangles are really good too onething I notice is you can kind of feelthe graininess of the sugar on thetriangle a little bit easier I thinkbecause it doesn’t it doesn’t have asmuch of a chance to kind of melt intothe cookie like it did with the tartswhich I put the sugar on before so Ithink for the rest of my cookies I’mgonna put them on put the sugar onbefore I put them in the oven andanother experiment I’m doing with thisone is they’ve been in the freezer thispast few minutes that I’ve been workingon these batches so I’m going to pullthose out of the freezer and put somesugar on them and pop those in the oventoyouokay so I just off the timer for threeminutes I’m gonna do the same thing itseemed to work really well to switchshelves and rotate the pans for the lastbatch so I’m gonna try the same thingwith these ones all right so I’m gonnatake them out and rotate them and switchshells these are looking really good tokind of blob of coffee stove but that’salrightthese ones are looking really good Ithink maybe these men’s stayed a littlebit cooler because the pan is thinnerdifferent metal than this one so we’llsee how those turn out we put them infor two minutes and check on thembecause that bottom pan well now thebottom pan looks like they might bepretty close all right let’s take a lookthey’re really close but not quiteI’m going to leave them in there foranother minutelook I’m pretty good I gotta say I’mgoing to take both of these out put onehere and then I’ll just squished onewith my oven at the well but one hereand I’ll put one on my stovetop for youwent ahead and turned my oven offbecause I don’t need that anymore makesure to turn your light off if you everhad that on to take a peek at thecookies best to leave those off whenyou’re not actually using themsometimes it’s hard to get them on thecooling racks because they’re kind ofsmall cookies so you can you can fix itwith your fingers just make sure thatyou don’t burn yourselfsometimes you break them that happensyou can just eat them since they’rebroken you don’t need to share em withothers rightall right so these are my second attemptat the original Girl Scout cookie and Ithink they turned out way better thanthe first turn aroundthey definitely puffed up a lot lessthey still rose a little bit but that’snatural considering us making powder init that’s a way of making your baking orcooking recipes rise up a little bit andthey taste really good like they don’ttaste any different really but they’resofter which I like I think I like theway that the sugar melts it into the toplike that I definitely prefer that overjust sprinkling it on after they comeout of the oven but when aren’t youdoing experiment two and figure outwhich one you prefer and in addition totrying out this recipe let us know onfacebook if you found out some othertips that work even better than this I’malready really happy with our progressbut there could be even more things thatwould make it easier and more firm kindof like our truffle is such a nice firmpicture it’s very compact so maybethere’s something else that you couldtry to make it even more like that letus know also on Facebook if there’ssomething that you’d like to see isthere something you’ve always wanted totry to cook I’m happy to cook along withyou during these virtual programmingtimes thanks for watching