Also known as…
Samoas Fudge Babies!
No, not the spicy Indian potato thing. That’s a samosa. This is a samoa. You don’t want to get the two confused! 
Awhile back, I posted a recipe for Raw Thin-Mint Brownies.
In that post, I vowed to someday try making raw samoas, my favorite girl-scout cookies as a child.
Gosh, my children are pretty.
Certainly prettier than those poor Thin Mint Brownies!
Samoas Babies
- Packed 1/2 cup dates (90g)
- 2 tbsp unsweetened shredded coconut (30g)
- 1/16 tsp pure vanilla extract
- scant 1/8 tsp salt
- 1-2 tbsp chocolate chips or bar (14-28g)
Put all the ingredients together in your food processor, and blend. (I like to make 1/2 a batch and use the Magic Bullet short cup.) You can reserve a few of the chocolate chips to add, post-blending, if you so desire. See below for nutrition information.
Nutrition Facts for Samoas Babies:
Serving Size: 45 grams (the size of a Larabar)
- 175 calories
- 8 g fat
- 2 g protein
- 5 g fiber
- 0 g added sugars
When I set out to create a fudge baby version of the famous Samoas girl-scout cookie, the first thing I did was look up ingredients for the real Samoas.
Do you know what I found?
It wasn’t pretty: Sugar, vegetable oil (partially-hydrogenated palm kernel and/or cottonseed oil, soybean and palm oil), enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), coconut, corn syrup, sweetened condensed milk (condensed milk, sugar), cocoa, sorbitol, glycerin, invert sugar, cocoa processed with alkali,cornstarch, salt, caramelized sugar, dextrose, soy lecithin, carrageenan, leavening, natural and artificial flavor
Anyone want to count how many times some form of sugar is listed in there? (Answer: six)
Sounds more like a science experiment than a cookie. Does anyone else find it upsetting that they’re allowed to produce such cookies and feed them—in bulk—to unsuspecting young girls (not to mention the rest of the population that buys the cookies from the scouts). I just don’t understand…
Why do they have to make junk?
Healthy food can taste delicious, as I say in my About Me page.
So why don’t they make a healthier cookie for the girl scouts to sell? Unfortunately, I know the answer: cost. It’s cheaper for companies to mass-produce cookies with chemical-y ingredients and preservatives than it’d be for them to use real, natural ingredients (i.e. ingredients found in cookies that people would bake at home!). Who ends up suffering? The consumers.
Don’t get me wrong…
I’m not saying that eating a girl-scout cookie every now and then is going to hurt you. I truly believe it’s perfectly healthy for people to occasionally eat unhealthy foods (as long as they don’t stress about it afterwards). Stress over achieving a “perfect” diet seems far worse for one’s health than eating processed junk every once in a while. No, what I’m upset about is the fact that manufacturers are allowed to produce said processed junk in the first place! Yes, America is a free country. But does this mean companies have the right to add to their products whatever unhealthy (and, in some cases, dangerous) ingredients they desire? And then they aggressively target these products towards children?! Marketing and deceptive advertising strategies can fool even the most well-intentioned consumers.
Ah, but I digress. Let’s get back to the fun stuff, shall we?
These are actually nut-free!
I improved upon the recipe after the photo-shoot, which is why the babies in the photos have nuts. (Please don’t take that sentence the wrong way.) Do they taste exactly like samoas cookies? No, but that wasn’t the taste/texture I set out to achieve when making these. They’re not raw samoas, they’re raw samoas fudge babies!
So what do they taste like?
Well, imagine a Samoa-flavored Larabar.
And click for a list of all the Homemade Larabar Flavors.
I made half a batch of these and they were delicious!!
I may have ate these with a spoon before forming them into balls….
Made these, loved them, will make again 🙂 Hubs is allergic to dates 🙁 so I guess I can try raisins??? Anyone have this issue or other ideas? Thanks, Donna
You can definitely try… Or maybe make the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie bars (or shape into balls), which are already made with raisins. 🙂
Loved these, but after a few tastes decided I wanted peanut butter, so I “destroyed” them (hahaha) and added 2 T peanut butter and rolled them in unsweetened coconut for a finish. YUM!! I should have just made your reese’s peanut butter eggs ;P
Hi! I’m new to this site. Can you tell me where are the rest of the preparation instructions for these? What to you do with the mix after you have blended it in the food processor?
Smush into a ball (it helps to use a plastic bag), and then form little balls 🙂
These look soooo good! If I made some tonight, how many days will they stay fresh in the fridge?
A fw weeks, or you can freeze them.
I’ve made these twice now – a quadruple batch both times! Yes, I love them and lucky for me, my kids don’t care for them much so I get them aaaaall to myself. I was wondering how many Larabars this recipe would make. I’m a calorie-counter, so I really appreciate the nutrition information, but I have no idea how many to cut it into to equal the calories given. I’m hoping that your recipe is for ONE. Ha!
I made a tripple batch of these for my whole family – they were great.
I was SO excited when I found your website and this recipe. I just tried to make a batch, tried being the operative word, and it came out delicious but really powdery. They just weren’t t sticky enough to roll into balls. I have really lame food processor – maybe that is my hang up?
That could be it… but also, it helps to put all the dough in a plastic bag and smush from inside the bag.
And I like sunmaid dates, which are softer.
Haven’t posted to your site before….just stalk all of your delicious recipes!! 🙂 I plan to finally dive into some of these holiday sweets over Christmas break with my kiddos! My husband and my daughter each have the biggest sweet tooth! My daughter, who is 8, will actually point to her top front tooth and say that is her “sweet tooth”! 🙂 Anyway, just wanted to say thank you for all you do to give us these healthy alternatives…and I am so glad to have found you and your beautifully photographed site!! Blessings this holiday season!!