If you thought you knew all the little-known ways to make your Girl Scout cookies taste even better, think again! We already know you can make a scrumptious s'mores dip in your air fryer, so why not use it to amplify the tastiness of some of your favorite cookies? Thankfully, the top three best-selling varieties -- Thin Mints, Samoas (Caramel deLites), and Tagalongs (Peanut Butter Patties) -- best suited for turning into air-fried superstars were not among those discontinued from the Girl Scout line up. Tagalongs, Samoas, and Do-si-dos (Peanut Butter Sandwiches) will be your favorites for this method, as you won't overpower the flavors and textures of these cookies. In a nutshell, you want something with a crunchy base and some type of filling or topping that will get melty -- this way, you'll have nice contrast when you pop them into the fryer. A cookie like the Adventurefuls would be delicious but likely too soft.
Don't air fry the cookies straight -- instead, wrap them in a dough to contain all the melty goodness that the air fryer creates. You can go premade with some store-bought crescent dough or put in a little elbow grease and make a nice choux -- perfect for crunchy and light cookies like Thin Mints, Lemon-Ups, or Lemonades. These may be a little dry and might benefit from a drizzle of powdered sugar glaze or a quick dip in a fruit compote. Melty, gooey, air-fried Girl Scout cookies are like deep-fried Oreos from the county fair or a treat from a Willy Wonka exhibition.
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You'll only need two ingredients to make the first version of air-fried deliciousness: your chosen cookie flavor and a tube crescent roll dough. One tube of crescent rolls contains eight portioned pieces, so if you're making these for a party, then it would be best to pick up more than one. First, remove the dough from the tube and unroll it, laying it out flat as you normally would when making crescent rolls.
Depending on your preferred dough-to-cookie ratio, you can either follow the perforations or cut the dough into two-by-two-inch squares. Using the perforations and wrapping the cookie in a similar manner to rolling a typical crescent roll will give you a thicker layer of breading around the cookie.
If you roll out a square, you just want to make sure the cookies are completely covered by the dough to prevent any leakage -- burned-on chocolate in an air fryer can be a pain to clean. Set your fryer to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and flip them after about four minutes -- and cook for another four. Presto! They'll be ready to devour. For extra flair, dust them with powdered sugar or some toasted coconut.
Thin Mints, Lemon-Ups, and Lemonades are much lighter than their other cookie cohorts, so using a lighter dough will help prevent them from getting lost in the denser crescent dough. The only extra equipment for this version is a saucepan. Choux pastry isn't as difficult to make as its French name might allude, featuring your basic dough ingredients: water, salt, flour, eggs, and butter. Just take a basic chocolate hazelnut profiterole recipe and follow the instructions for the pâte à choux -- just be especially careful when adding the eggs, so you don't end up scrambling them in high heat.
Piping is the best way to handle choux, as it's looser than crescent dough. Pipe a filled-in circle of dough slightly larger than the cookie on a piece of parchment paper. You'll then place the cookie on the circle and fully cover it with more dough. They'll need to chill in the fridge for an hour before air frying -- which will take about 10 to 12 minutes at 375 degrees.
Once fried, roll them in cinnamon sugar like they're cookie-stuffed churros, drizzle them with a powdered sugar glaze, or dip the lemony cookies into a fruity sauce. Either way, you have a light and airy pastry surrounding your light and airy cookies. Regardless of if it's Girl Scout season, you can make thin mints with only two ingredients and enjoy this treat year-round.
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