Thursday, March 13, 2014

Homemade Tagalongs

We don't have a lot of Girl Scouts around here, so I rarely get to sample Girl Scouts cookies. They're too expensive anyway. But one time our pastor passed us a box of Tagalongs -- cookie, peanut butter, chocolate -- that were delicious.

So it occurred to me the other day -- could these be made at home? A quick internet search revealed a website called Back for Seconds that promised Tagalongs could be made with three ingredients. I decided to give it a try.

I actually ended up using five ingredients: peanut butter, vanilla wafers, chocolate chips, shortening, and corn syrup.


I started with a cup of peanut butter and a quarter-cup of corn syrup...


...which I mixed together to make the peanut butter a bit sweeter.


Then I took a cup of chocolate chips (semi-sweet) and added a heaping tablespoon of shortening (for extra smoothness), which I melted in the microwave.


When melting chocolate chips in the microwave, be careful not to heat it for more than about thirty seconds at a time. After each thirty seconds, give it a good stir, then if necessary pop it in for another thirty seconds. Depending on the strength of your microwave, it probably won't take more than one minute, maybe 90 seconds tops, to have liquified chocolate.


As the chocolate cools and becomes less runny, you may have to re-zap it for another few seconds to keep the chocolate liquidy enough.

At first, I added a dab of peanut butter to each cookie, then dunked the cookie into the chocolate. Doing them one at a time in this way turned out to be too messy.


What I ended up doing was making the cookies assembly-line fashion, where I dabbed a bunch of cookies with peanut butter first, then started dunking in chocolate. Another little trick I learned: when peanut butter is cool, it won't "adhere" to the cookies very well. So I popped the peanut butter in the microwave for about thirty seconds, which warmed it just enough to smear beautifully on the cookies.


Because the peanut butter cooled fairly fast, I worked in batches of about twenty cookies. First I smeared them with peanut butter, then I started dunking them in chocolate.


Using a fork to fish out the cookie allows the extra chocolate to drip off.


Gradually I worked my way through the whole box of vanilla wafers, stopping to re-zap either the chocolate or the peanut butter as necessary.


Then I put them in the freezer for a few hours to cool and harden.


The results were so good that I ended up taking them to our neighborhood potluck, since it was my turn to bring dessert. The cookies should stay refrigerated since the chocolate becomes gooey at room temperature.


What a nice easy (and inexpensive) way to make a delicious cookie!


By the way, this Back for Seconds website has an impressive array of duplicate recipes for popular items. Definitely worth checking out!

11 comments:

  1. These are my favorite Girl Scout cookies, but I always feel bad when I eat them due to the ingredient list. Never even crossed my mind to make them!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I wonder if it would be easier to put the warm peanut butter in a plastic bag, shift it all to one corner, cut off a small piece of the bag at the corner and make a 'piping bag' sort of thing to pipe the peanut butter onto the cookie?

    Fran

    ReplyDelete
  3. I also wonder if using coating chocolate would make the cookies more stable at room temperature? You would need to omit the shortening.....

    Fran

    ReplyDelete
  4. YOU are such a bad girl, Patrice!

    Now...may I have a cookie, please? ;)

    I'll bet those little delights will disappear in a hurry. Peanut butter and chocolate? Hey, we're talking basic food group here! :)

    A.McSp

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm so glad you found my site! Your tagalongs came out great! Good thing I bought more vanilla wafers today...you have me craving these again!

    ReplyDelete
  6. There is a news site called "before its news" that has a "Self-Sufficiency" section. They have redone their site and your last 3 articles have been linked there. Thought you would like to know.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for showing me that website. Great recipes. Made Snicker-doodle bars yesterday. Yum!
    There is a Kit Kat recipe too. Wow!
    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  8. Have you tried coconut oil for melting into chocolate? It seems to hold together better at room temp than some other fats. Of course, it will liquefy in a very warm room but it helps. If you get the proportions right you don't taste the coconut. And if you get the proportions wrong...well, I like coconut and chocolate so there is no "wrong" to me!

    ReplyDelete
  9. This recipes looks great I am going to have to give it a try. Thanks for sharing it. You can substitute honey for the corn syrup, get a mild flavored honey and you won't be able to taste it. I also found a recipe for home made vanilla wafers that I want to try.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I made these the other day, and the kids and husband loved them! They were so easy, but so tasty. Thank you for sharing :)

    ReplyDelete