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’ve tried the samoa once before and remember it was good! so I guess I’ll be knowing what they taste like after I try these 😀 I agree with what you wrote here Katie~stressing about those things is worse. But it’s so sad that $ drives companies to make bad food just to save $.
Katie you make raw look sexy 😉
Good Lord, Katie. I just want to propose to you, that’s about all I cant say 🙂
LOL if you offer a chocolate ring, I might say yes ;).
So true! I hate how products are labeled and marketed to appear healthy too. There’s no definition for “all natural,” and “trans fat free” products can still have small amounts of trans fats in them. Most consumers are tricked by labels and don’t really know what’s in their food, and they end up buying their kids junk food! You should create your own vegan & healthy Girl Scout cookie line!
So true! I tell people that all the time. “All natural” means so little that even a Burger King burger would actually be allowed to be classified as “all natural”!
Drool. I love samoas, can’t wait to try these babies!
Ok we definitely have ESP- yesterday I was sitting in class trying to come up with something like this! Yes, that is what I do in class. Such is life. Can’t wait to try this recipe!
Hey, we have to keep oursevles entertained in class somehow, right? 😉
I’m making these TODAY!
Hi Katie! Do you happen to know if one could sub prunes in for the dates for these(and really, all of your fudge baby recipes)? I’m not a big fan of dates but I really want to try making them. Thanks 🙂
I’ve never made them with prunes, but I do know that a few commenters have made the regular fudge babies with prunes and liked the results. I tried figs once, but I did not like that taste at all.
These look AMAZING! I have eaten way more Samoas in my life than I’d like to admit. Now I can do so in a healthy, delicious way! And thank you so much for making them nut-free! Having a nut allergy can be pretty restricting when it comes to desserts. You’re awesome!
Aww, you are so very welcome. I have a few more nut-less fudge baby ideas I want to try!
Your babies are sooo adorable, Katie! They take after their mum, don’t they? 😉 But… no food processor and no dates means no samoa fudge babies for me. I will have to stick to the jar of crunchy peanut butter for now :/