HUGE Tagalong Cookies | Woman Scout Cookie Series

We are BACK with another Women Scout Cookie Recipe, and this time, it’s the Tagalong’s turn! Everyone and their mother has a Samoa remake recipe, but the Tagalong never seems to get the same kind of love. And I don’t understand why. This cookie is just straight up peanut butter goodness! Plus with chocolate? What’s not to love.

Now this recipe is a slightly ~elevated~ take on a Tagalong. It makes three cookies and has much more of a focus on the peanut butter aspect, as opposed to the chocolate coating. You will notice there’s no chocolate coating on this recipe, but trust me, you won’t miss it! Instead you’ll have this soft, melt-in-your-mouth peanut butter cookie packed with chocolate chips and topped with creamy PB. You’ll be in Tagalong heaven 😉

The ingredients for this recipe begin as your standard cookie ingredients, but there are few key differences in this recipe that make a huge difference.

*To note: You’ll notice I’m using grams in this recipe first. I’m usually not a huge stickler for grams vs. cups in my cooking recipes, but for cookie recipes I’ve noticed that grams are the only option if you want the cookie to come out looking exactly like mine. I’ve guesstimated the cup measurements, but again, they are different for everyone! So stick to grams if you can!

The dry ingredients

• 135 grams all-purpose flour – this is about 1 cup, loosely packed
• 8 grams cornstarch – about 1 tbsp, and this ingredient is crucial to the cookie’s softness!
• 1/2 tsp baking powder – it’s not a lot of leavener for this recipe, but we want the cookies to spread out nice and wide so you get a lot of surface area for the topping!
• 1/8 tsp salt – salt is crucial to play off of the peanut butter flavor! This is a little more than a pinch, but totally worth it in the end.

the wet ingredients

• 75 grams vegan butter – Now the brand you use will slightly tweak the recipe. I used Country Crock Avocado Oil butter, about 1/3 cup. You can also use the Country Crock olive oil blend or Miyokos and get great results.
• 75 grams granulated sugar – this cup measurement is also pretty true to form, it’s about 1/3 cup. And we don’t use any brown sugar in this recipe surprisingly! But that’s because we get the depth of flavor from:
• 15 grams maple syrup! This is about 1 tbsp and totally adds a different vibe to the dough. You’ll get it when you make it 😉
• 30 grams creamy peanut butter – about 2 tbsp, and try to do creamy for this one! The more drizzly your peanut butter, the better. And if you are feeling adventurous, you can also totally add in another nut butter as a substitute.
• 30 grams almond milk – about 1 tbsp. Since these cookies are vegan, this milk adds the same moisture that an egg normally would. Plus using milk gives us the enviable crackly-top cookie look!
• 75 grams chopped dark chocolate –  about 1/2 cup (or more if you want!) I recommend chopping a chocolate bar into slivers instead of using chocolate chips. It will melt better in the oven and give you a more consistent dough shape!

how to get the perfect dough, every time

Besides from measuring your ingredients by weight (which please do! I beg of you queens!) there are a few ways you can get the best dough results, all by paying a little more attention to how you pull everything together. In baking, it’s the tiny changes that make the big difference!

Here are a few ways to get amazing results:

1. Use an electric mixer or stand mixer to beat the wet ingredients. Start with every wet ingredient except the milk, and beat at a high speed until it looks like a smooth dough. Then add the milk and beat at a high speed again. The milk won’t want to combine smoothly, so you have to beat it for a pretty extended period of time! Creaming wet ingredients is always the longest process, but it’s so worth it! This will create a lighter, fluffier dough and a smoother dough consistency.
2. Whisk together the dry ingredients first, before adding them to the wet – it seems like common knowledge, but it will make all the difference in getting your baking powder and cornstarch evenly distributed! Cornstarch is such a finicky ingredient, that it really needs to be mixed it to truly ~work~ in the recipe!
3. Use your electric mixer to combine the dry and the wet – in this instance it’s ok to beat some gluten into it! I know so many food bloggers who are adamant about folding in the dry ingredients to the wet to not develop any gluten, but gluten is what gives a cookie some amazing structure and chew! It’s a great way to make this dough absolute perfection.

shaping and baking your tagalong cookie dough

Shaping this dough is pretty straightforward, but with one big twist. This recipe will make three large cookies (truly massive, I think once they cook they are about 5-6 inches in diameter!) and you want them to be slightly flat on the top in order to hold the peanut butter topping!

When shaping the dough, I recommend using a slightly wet hand to form the dough into three even balls. Dampening your hand before will prevent the dough from sticking to you as you shape it!

To make the indents in the middle, run a spoon under cold water for a few seconds, and then use it to indent a circle into the middle of the cookies (see the image below). The indent should be deeper than you want it in the end, because the cookie will rise in the oven and the indent will flatten out.

Once the cookies are out of the oven, they will still be slightly pliable, so we use the spoon again to push down the middle, and you’ll be left with the perfect indent!

how to make the topping for this recipe

In a normal Tagalong, the topping is just plain ol’ peanut butter. But that’s so boring! We can elevate it with just a few ingredients.

Since we are using peanut butter in the actual cookie part of the recipe, it’s only fair to use peanut butter in the topping too. But just like the cookie, we want to add a little bit of that gooey-delicious-chocolatey chunk flavor too. I am a huge dark chocolate fan, so I mixed together equal amounts of chopped dark chocolate and drizzly peanut butter. It comes out chunky, but the ratio is amazing. And when it melts on top of the cookie right when it’s fresh out of the oven? Total bliss.

You can opt for more or less, but I recommend using:

• 45 grams almond butter, about 3 tbsp
• 25 grams chopped dark chocolate. about 2 tbsp

And just mixing it all together!

tips on how to store these cookies

What’s great about this dough is you can definitely make it ahead of time and bake when you need it. And what’s even better about these cookies is that they are SO moist that they last for a while in an airtight container without going stale! If you want to prep these ahead of time, or make them and save them for later, here are a few tips:

If you want to make the dough ahead of time and save it:

Prep the dough as normal, but then split into three balls (or the number of cookies you plan on making). Place the pre-portioned balls in either a ziploc or a tupperware container and leave in the fridge for up to 5 days. Bake whenever! This dough will also last in the freezer for up to six months, but I recommend thawing it in the fridge one day before you bake. Make the topping portion on-demand for best results!

If you want to bake the cookies and store them:

Most importantly, if you plan on storing these cookies, don’t add the peanut butter topping until you want to eat them. The peanut butter will get all melty and hard to handle if you top it then store it, so I’ve found it’s best to store the topping in one small container and the cookies in another.

If you put the cookies in an airtight container, they will last for about 5 days at room temperature. They will last about 7 days in the fridge, but be sure to warm them up a a bit before eating! They’re just 10 times better (and softer) that way!

And that’s about it on the cookie front! Don’t forget to test out the other Girl Scout Cookies in the Woman Scout Cookies Series linked here. And also if you make these, please tag me on IG! I’d love to see how they turn out. And ofc, happy baking!