I closed out out Girl Scout cookie season by making Stella Park's Homemade Trefoils from Bravetart. Many of Stella's recipes have surprise ingredients -- like the coconut extract in her Homemade Oreo Cookies and Thin Mints. And who would have guessed that her knockoff of the Girl Scouts' shortbread cookie would be made with coconut oil?
This is a straightforward recipe. You beat butter, refined coconut oil, sugar, vanilla, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg until light. Then you beat in a cold egg followed by flour. You can roll and cut the dough immediately. I used a 2-inch round cutter and got 45 cookies from a batch of dough. I rolled the dough between two sheets of parchment and didn't need to use any flour; I was able to re-roll all of the scraps repeatedly without any problems.
I tasted a cookie while it was still warm and was dismayed that the nutmeg flavor seemed a little strong. By the following morning, the nutmeg flavor was much less pronounced and in fact I doubt most people could even detect it. I had purchased some real Trefoils (shown on the right in the photo above) so that I would be able to make a side-by-side comparison. When I opened the box of Girl Scout Trefoils and ate one, I was shocked. It was awful. I don't normally buy Trefoils so I didn't have a clear memory of how they should taste. But the cookie was both overly sweet and chemically artificial. I don't mind artificial vanilla flavor from time to time -- I love Nabisco Nilla Wafers and really liked Christina Tosi's Confetti Cookies. But Girl Scout Trefoils are a disgrace.
By contrast, the homemade Trefoil is buttery and delicious; it's everything you want in a shortbread cookie. My husband boiled down the difference between the homemade cookie and the real one by declaring that the former was good and the latter was bad. In the end, I don't think it's accurate to characterize this as a Homemade Trefoil because the two cookies taste totally different -- and who would want to make a cookie that tastes like an actual Trefoil anyway? I feel a little guilty about throwing shade at the Girl Scouts and criticizing their cookies, but I still remain a fan. I'm just going to stick to Thin Mints and Samoas from now on!
Recipe: "Homemade Trefoils" from Bravetart by Stella Parks.
Previous Post: "The Girl Scouts Have Some Real Competition: Homemade Thin Mints," March 22, 2018.
This is a straightforward recipe. You beat butter, refined coconut oil, sugar, vanilla, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg until light. Then you beat in a cold egg followed by flour. You can roll and cut the dough immediately. I used a 2-inch round cutter and got 45 cookies from a batch of dough. I rolled the dough between two sheets of parchment and didn't need to use any flour; I was able to re-roll all of the scraps repeatedly without any problems.
By contrast, the homemade Trefoil is buttery and delicious; it's everything you want in a shortbread cookie. My husband boiled down the difference between the homemade cookie and the real one by declaring that the former was good and the latter was bad. In the end, I don't think it's accurate to characterize this as a Homemade Trefoil because the two cookies taste totally different -- and who would want to make a cookie that tastes like an actual Trefoil anyway? I feel a little guilty about throwing shade at the Girl Scouts and criticizing their cookies, but I still remain a fan. I'm just going to stick to Thin Mints and Samoas from now on!
Recipe: "Homemade Trefoils" from Bravetart by Stella Parks.
Previous Post: "The Girl Scouts Have Some Real Competition: Homemade Thin Mints," March 22, 2018.
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