Peanut Butter Sandwich Cheesecake Truffles

Girl Scout cookie sales have come to an end (almost) and here I sit with 2 CASES of Peanut Butter Sandwiches (or Do-Si-Dos). These are a classic Girl Scout cookie, around back when I sold cookies in the 80s. They have their own following, but are no where near the popularity of the Thin Mint, Caramel Delite (or Samoas) or Peanut Butter Patties (or Tagalongs).

Here in South Dakota, we do not do pre-sales (think the Girl Scout out with her sales form and then delivering cookies several weeks/a month later), we have cookies on hand. I really prefer this method. Neighbors are more likely to purchase from the girl with cookies in hand. The hard part is predicting what you might need. My girls like to do booth sales, so I have made it a habit to schedule 1-2 booths during the last weekend of sales and let my parents return cookies they aren't able to sell (by a deadline).

The number of girls tripled for me -- Maggie's troop doubled in size and Jessie is now a Girl Scout. We went from 5 girls selling last year to 16 girls! So lots of new girls selling. We had a fantastic year. Unfortunately, some of them over-estimated the popularity of some cookies, which is why I now have 24 boxes of Peanut Butter Sandwiches (and Shortbreads). We have one final booth coming up at SDSU right before Easter, so I am hoping we can find some creative ways to sell these not-as-popular cookies. 

In browsing around Pinterest, I found a recipe for Peanut Butter Cheesecake Truffles and decided to see if they would work with Peanut Butter Sandwiches in place of the peanut butter. And I'm happy to say they were a success! Just a few ingredients and we have another way to enjoy these cookies! I'm hoping to do the same with a couple of other cookies before the final sales.

Peanut Butter Sandwich Cheesecake Truffle

1 box Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies (you will use 1.5 sleeves)

8 oz cream cheese, room temp

1/3 cup powdered sugar (more to taste)

8 oz chocolate chips + 1/2 cup if desired.

Finely crush 1.5 sleeves of Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies in a food processor. Whip with 8 oz of cream cheese and 1/3 cup powdered sugar until smooth. Fold in chocolate chips (if desired). Chill mixture in refrigerator for 1 hour. Form into balls. [I used a small cookie scoop for the balls above. I think I want to find a smaller one so they are truly bite sized.] Freeze. [Due to time, I froze them overnight, which was more than enough. An hour should be fine.] Melt 8 oz of chocolate chips. Dip & cover balls in melted chocolate. Sprinkle with extra crushed cookies. Freeze minimum 1 hour. Enjoy!

More Cooking with Girl Scout Cookies (Thin Mints)

This year, we grabbed a case of Thin Mints and threw them directly in the freezer. What is better than frozen Thin Mints? Perhaps only Thin Mint ice cream! In the past, I've just done a simple vanilla ice cream and crushed Thin Mints in it. This time, I used Alton Brown's chocolate ice cream recipe, exchanged the vanilla for mint extract and crumbled in the Thin Mints. YUM!!!

This is the original recipe from Good Eats, Churn Baby Churn II:

3 cups half and half

1 cup heavy cream

1 1/2 ounces Dutch-processed cocoa powder

8 large egg yolks

9 ounces white sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla (for the Thin Mint ice cream, I only used 1 tsp of the mint extract)

1 sleeve of Thin Mints crushed (if making thin mint ice cream)

Whisk 1 cup of half and half with the cocoa in a saucepan. Combine with remaining half and half and heavy cream. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and set aside.

Whisk egg yolks in large mixing bowl until they lighten in color. Gradually add sugar until smooth.

Slowly ladle one third of hot cocoa mixture into the yolk mixture whisking constantly (which is why I use a mixer) to temper eggs. Return this mixture to the saucepan with remaining cocoa mixture. Cook over low heat, stirring frequently until the custard thickens slightly & coats the back of a spoon.

Add vanilla (or mint), and cool to room temp (about 30 minutes). Cover and refrigerate until temp drops below 40 degrees (overnight works best).

Pour into prepped ice cream maker and process. About 5 minutes before end time, sprinkle in crushed Thin Mints. Serve with whole or crushed Thin Mints. Enjoy!!!

Cooking with Girl Scout cookies

Normally this is not a topic I would even consider -- I mean really, who has extra Girl Scout cookies? Well, this year, I do. We, er I, overestimated the area's desire for Shortbread and we ended up with about 2 cases more than we needed. And people aren't exactly clamoring for Shortbread!

There are a lot of options out there, but most called for crushing the cookies and making into a crust. Then I found one to use the cookies to make tiramisu. I've always wanted to try to make tiramisu and this seemed like a fun way to use up some of the cookies (and perhaps sell more boxes with the recipe!)

I think next time I will add cocoa directly to the mascarpone mix so it wasn't so grainy.

1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk

8 oz mascarpone cheese

1tablespoon cocoa

Mix the above together.

8 oz heavy cream

Whip the heavy cream to stuff peaks and then fold in the mascarpone mix.

5 tablespoons of brewed coffee (or 1/2 coffee and 1/2 coffee liquor)

To plate the tiramisu:

1 shortbread cookie

1 tsp coffee

1/4 cup mascarpone mix

Layer as many times as you like. This will make approximately 7 servings of tiramisu with 2 layers.

Yum yum!!