These soft and gooey bars feature three delicious layers: shortbread cookie crust, caramel coconut filling, and a milk chocolate drizzle. This recipe is inspired by Samoas Girl Scout cookies. Pssst….our version is even better.
You know I love, love, love bar desserts. They’re quick to make, easy to serve, and the flavor possibilities are endless (see peanut butter bars, chocolate pecan bars, and lemon blueberry bars). These caramel coconut bars were an immediate favorite!
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These caramel coconut bars are
Three layers: Shortbread crust, caramel coconut filling, chocolate topping.
Chewy and gooey: Thanks to a brown sugar-caramel and shredded coconut.
Sweet and buttery: These bars are rich and decadent. A little goes a long way.
A make ahead dessert: These bars require several hours to cool, so this is a great treat to make in advance.
Easy: Even with three different layers this recipe comes together quickly and easily.
Behind the recipe testing
I love Samoas Girl Scout cookies but I felt like they could be made even better. Here’s how I got to work on these Samoas-inspired bars:
- Bars instead of cookies: Bars are much easier to prepare than individual cookies.
- Stick with a shortbread cookie crust: This crust is a touch softer and more buttery than the Girl Scout version.
- Extra caramel coconut filling: I wanted an ooey-gooey filling that was packed with buttery caramel and lots of shredded coconut.
- Chocolate topping: I tested this recipe with semisweet, bittersweet, and milk chocolate. My taste testers all agreed that milk chocolate was our favorite. We skipped dipping the bottom into chocolate (although feel free to do so!) and drizzled it on top.
- Sweet and salty balance: Although the traditional is cookie is good, we found them to be sooooo sweet. I was sure to balance out the sweetness with salt in the crust and filling, as well as a sprinkle of flaky finishing salt on top of the bars.
