It’s Girl Scout cookie season, and for the second year in a row, restaurants all over the state are participating in a dessert challenge incorporating the iconic treats. Chefs are re-imaging ways to use Do-si-dos, Samoas and Thin Mints to help benefit a scout camp in Phoenix. As Arizona Public Radio’s Justin Regan reports, two Flagstaff restaurants are tossing their recipes in to the ring this year.
Hillary Wamble is a pastry chef at Criollo Latin Kitchen in Flagstaff. Today, she’s layering blood orange syrup and lemon and lime curd in large dessert glasses.
“Right now I’m just whipping the cream so that it’s kind of a stiffer texture so that it forms good layers,” said Wamble.
But the most special layer of all in this trifle is a shortbread streusel made of Trefoils, the original Girl Scout cookie.
“It’s been more fun than challenging. It was awesome to take a classic cookie that people love and put a new spin on it. So nothing was challenging. It was mostly just fun,” said Wamble.
Wamble’s trifle is one of over thirty creations from restaurants all over the state showcasing the cookies in a more gourmet style. They’re even putting the desserts on their menus through the end of the month in honor of Girl Scout cookie season.
Heather Thornton is a communications manager for the Girl Scouts in Arizona.
“Utilizing partners to help us get the word out, maybe to customers that our girls don’t always see regularly, or they not are as familiar with girl scouts. And our existing customers, who just need a fresh way to eat these cookies, or reason to buy an extra package,” said Thornton.
Thornton says normally restaurants aren’t legally allowed to use Girl Scout cookies in their food. But this partnership gives them legitimate permission.
“That’s a hard thing to police, we would just hope they’d want to be part of this fun event, and work with us in a way that makes everybody happy,” said Thronton.
The Lumberyard Brewery is also creating a dessert for the challenge. Last year they were the only restaurant in Flagstaff to take part. Cook Richard Kimball says peanut butter is this year’s theme.
“A chef came in, said ‘hey, we’re going to do that Girl Scout challenge if you have any ideas, we got Do-si-dos this year, that’s what we picked’. And I was like ‘well I can make gooey cake’. And he was like ‘alright you’re going to run with this’. First thing that popped into my head is the peanut butter gooey cake, we tried it out and it worked out well,” said Kimball.
But Kimball says developing a new recipe is still a matter of trial and error.
“There’s a lot that goes into the creative process. We take the cookie and we’re like ‘Ok, what can we do with this? What can we do with these flavors? What can we do with these techniques? How can we incorporate the cookie?’ It took us a few batches last year to get it right,” said Kimball.
The recipes will be posted online at the end of the challenge. So that Girl Scout Cookie enthusiasts can try their own hand at making Do-si-do apple pie or maybe a Tagalong Napoleon.
