Vegan Samoa Cookies

I found this great vegan Samoa Cookie recipe from this website http://www.alisacooks.com/2011/03/15/samoa-girl-scout-cookies/   They looked so delicious and didn't have any scary ingredients that some vegan recipes have, so I had to give it a try . . . and they turned out awesome!  I pretty much stuck to the recipe exactly and barely modified it.  I ended up using a vanilla bean in the shortbread cookie, only because I didn't have enough vanilla extract at the time.  Anyway, go to her site!  She has a ton of great looking recipes.  I can't wait to try another one :) 

 The recipe calls for parchment paper, but I didn't have any.  They didn't stick at all to my pan, but I would't definitly use parchment paper if I had it.

I increased the baking time to 20-22 minutes.  I'm at a higher altitude, so things take a little longer to cook here. 

 I dipped the shortbread cookies in the chocolate before I added the coconut topping using a fork.  I was worried if I put the coconut topping on first, it would fall off.  Set them on wax paper so the chocolate doesn't stick when it hardens.

I use Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate.  They don't add any dairy, but it says it may contain dairy because of the facility it was made in.  It doesn't seem to bother my son's allergies if I eat stuff like that.

 The recipe calls for 1 1/4 cup of coconut, but my sugar mixture lookd a little runny so I used a whole package of coconut that had 2 2/3 cups.

 I used a chopstick to drizzle the chocolate over the cookies . . . what a yummy mess!

Watch out, these are dangerously good, but not really good for you, so eat with a buddy.  That way you can't eat them all yourself!