Eat Out Eat Well

Girl Scout Cookies: here’s the original recipe

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Girl Scout Cookies

Chris Rock nudged the Oscar audience into buying $65,243 worth of Girl Scout cookies. Most of us don’t buy our cookies in an audience full of theater royalty, but rather from Girl Scouts who have set up tables on sidewalks, in front of stores, who have rung your doorbell, online, or from parents selling them at the office.

But, no matter when or where you buy them, the Thin Mints, Samoas, Trefoils, Tagalongs are still the cookies we know and love.

The Original Girl Scout Cookie

Even though Thin Mints account for about 25% of Girl Scout cookie sales, the thin chocolate wafers bear little resemblance (other than being cookies) to the original Girl Scout cookie.

The first Girl Scout troop was organized over a hundred years ago (March 12, 1912) in Savannah, Georgia. Selling cookies as a way to finance troop activities began as early as 1917 when they were sold in an Oklahoma high school cafeteria as a service project.

Girl Scout cookies were originally baked in home kitchens with moms as the “technical advisers.” In July 1922, The American Girl Magazine, which was published by Girl Scout national headquarters, printed a cookie recipe that had been distributed to the Council’s 2,000 Girl Scouts. The approximate cost of ingredients for six- to seven-dozen cookies was estimated at 26 to 36 cents; the suggested sale price was 25 or 30 cents for a dozen.

In the 20s and 30s the simple sugar cookies that were baked by Girl Scouts and their mothers were packaged in waxed paper bags, sealed with stickers, and sold door to door.

The Original Recipe

The Original Girl Scout Cookie Recipe (circa 1922)

  • 1 cup butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • Additional sugar for topping (optional)
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tablespoons milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder

Cream the butter and the cup of sugar. Add the well-beaten eggs, then milk, vanilla, flour, salt, and baking powder. Refrigerate for at least one hour. Roll out the dough, cut into trefoil shapes, and sprinkle sugar on top, if desired.

Bake in a quick oven (375°) for approximately 8 to 10 minutes, or until the edges begin to brown. Makes six- to seven-dozen cookies.

Present Day Girl Scout Cookies

For present day cookie recipes, check out the websites of the two licensed Girl Scout cookie bakers: ABC Bakers and Little Brownie Bakers, and on www.pinterest.com/GSUSA. For a list of specific cookie ingredients go to Meet the Cookies.

Why is my Trefoil called Shortbread and my Samoa a Caramel deLite?

If you’ve ever wondered why your cookie may be called Shortbread instead of Trefoil, it’s because the two bakers call them different names. The cookies have a similar look and taste but the name and recipe vary with the baker. Both companies call their chocolate-mint cookie, Thin Mint. I guess you can’t mess with the gold standard!

The cookies, all of which are kosher, are sold by weight, not quantity. The size and number of cookies in the package varies with the baker, but both are displayed on every package. The cookies are sold for different prices in different areas of the country with each of the 112 Girl Scout councils setting their own price based on its needs and its familiarity with the local market.

Movies, Popcorn, and the Oscars, too!

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Popcorn and the Oscars

When you think movie, do you also think popcorn? A good percentage of movie viewing people do.

And what’s the biggest movie night of the year? The Academy Awards, of course.

Oscar has been around for a long time – the first Academy Awards ceremony was in 1929 – but the main snack food that’s associated with movies has been around a lot longer.

The Evolution of Popcorn

The puffy goodness we know as popcorn is a strain of corn (from maize) cultivated in Central America about 8,000 years ago. North American whalers probably brought popcorn to New England from Chile in the early 19th century. Popping popcorn was fun and its appeal spread rapidly across the country.

By the mid 1800’s popcorn was widely available, especially at places like circuses and fairs. The invention of the steam-powered popcorn maker in 1885 meant popcorn could be made anywhere. Amazingly, the only place where it wasn’t usually available was in theaters, which typically had carpeted floors. Theater owners didn’t want popcorn “dirtying” up the place (have you ever tried to vacuum up popcorn from carpeted floors).

Popcorn and Movies

Because of its popularity, theater owners began to allow popcorn vendors to sell popcorn outside their theaters. During the Great Depression people looked for cheap diversions and movies were it and popcorn — at 5 to 10 cents a bag — was an affordable luxury.

Theater owners began to lease their lobbies to popcorn vendors, but then figured out they could make more money by selling it themselves. Selling popcorn, candy, and soda from their own concession stands meant higher profits. Sugar shortages during World War II made sweet treats hard to come by, and popcorn became the main snack. By 1945 over half of the popcorn eaten in the US was consumed in movie theaters.

Popcorn is still king. Americans eat, on average, about 13 gallons of popcorn a year. It’s cheap to make and allows for a huge price mark-up. You might pay $5 for a bag of popcorn, but it costs the theater about 50 cents. Plain popcorn doesn’t have all that much flavor, so yellow oil (it isn’t butter) and salt are added to make it tasty and make you thirsty. So, you buy a soda. No wonder movie theaters make an estimated 85 percent profit from concession sales, with those sales accounting for 46 percent of overall profits.

Popcorn Recipes

This Sunday as you prop your feet up to watch the glamorous stars grab their golden statues, make sure you have a good supply of popcorn on hand. You don’t have to settle for the plain variety – unless you want to. There are some fantastic popcorn recipes with names like Bacon Bourbon Caramel Popcorn, Cinnamon Candy Popcorn (which is red, like the red carpet), Pizza Popcorn, Peanut Butter Popcorn, and Endless Caramel Corn.

For even more popcorn recipes to accompany your cheers, boos, oohs, and ahs on Oscar night, check out:

Food Network’s 50 Flavored Popcorn Recipes

19 Ways to Flavor Popcorn

30 Healthy Popcorn Recipes That Satisfy Every Snack Craving

Popcorn Recipes

What Do You Eat With Your Movie?

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Movie Calories

When you enter a movie theater lobby what do you usually notice first?  After the cost of the ticket, it’s probably the delicious smell of freshly popped (maybe or maybe not) popcorn. It’s no accident that the concession stand with it’s popcorn popper and glass cases filled with the candy that reminds you that you were once a carefree kid — is right smack in the middle of the lobby.  It’s there to send your already conditioned eyes, nose, and salivary glands an urgent message:  “Buy some, eat some”!

There’s No Escaping the Movie Theater Munching

Even if you make it through the lobby without buckets and boxes in hand, all you have to do is sit down in the theater with someone near you noisily munching away.  Up you go – back to the lobby and the concession stand.

It’s amazing what triggers us to eat. There’s a research study by the Cornell food lab that shows that people overeat when they have large portions — even when they don’t like the food. Moviegoers given stale popcorn in big buckets ate 34% more than people who were given the medium size of the same stale popcorn. People who had large buckets of fresh popcorn ate 45% more than people with the medium size.

If you’re going to eat it, at least give some thought to what you’re doing.  Would a small size bag of popcorn rather than jumbo bucket do it for you?  How about a regular candy bar instead of a king size?  If the popcorn, pretzels, or nachos are stale and nasty do you really want them?  Can you ditch the soda for plain old water or a sugar free drink (most 12 ounce sodas have between 9 and 10 teaspoons of sugar)? You could bring some healthy snacks with you — like a lower calorie protein bar or trail mix (a crunchy apple doesn’t lend itself to quiet eating).

FYI:  Some Popular Movie Theater Snacks – And Their Calorie Counts

(Note the serving sizes, movie theater boxes of candy are often huge and may be double or triple the size shown below and what’s considered a large popcorn in one theater chain might be a medium in another. The number of cups of popcorn sounds crazy – but that’s how much is in the bucket or bag that’s commonly available.)

Popcorn, Nachos, Soft Pretzel

  • Buttered popcorn, small, 5 cups:  470 calories, 35g fat
  • Buttered popcorn, large, 20 cups:  1640 calories, 126g fat
  • Cheese nachos, large (4 ounces):  1100 calories, 60g fat
  • Soft pretzel, large (5 ounces):  480 calories, 5g fat

Soda and Lemonade

  • Coke, small (18 ounces: 218 calories, 0g fat
  • Coke, large (44 ounces):  534 calories, 0g fat
  • Minute Maid Lemonade (18 ounces):  248 calories, 0g fat
  • Minute Maid Lemonade (44 ounces):  605 calories, 0g fat

Candy

  • Junior Mints, 3-ounce box:  360 calories, 7g fat
  • SnoCaps, 3.1-ounce box:  300 calories, 15g fat
  • Milk Duds, 3-ounce box:  370 calories, 12g fat
  • Raisinets, 3.5-ounce bag:  400 calories, 16g fat
  • Goobers, 3.5-ounce box:  500 calories, 35g fat
  • Twizzlers, 6-ounce bag:  570 calories, 4g fat
  • M&Ms, 5.3-ounce bag:  750 calories, 32g fat
  • Peanut M&Ms, 5.3-ounce bag:  790 calories, 40g fat
  • Reese’s Pieces, 8-ounce bag:  1160 calories, 60g fat

Some Exercise Ideas To Burn Off Super Bowl Party Food Calories

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Exercises to burn off Super Bowl calories

Will you be watching the big game? Maybe you’re more interested in the food than the game. Either way, according to the Calorie Control Council, the average game watcher chows down on about 1,200 calories worth of food and snacks on game day – Super Bowl Sunday is the second biggest eating day (right behind Thanksgiving).

Here are some exercises (some a little wacky) to burn off the game day food overload. The numbers are just estimates – there’s always a wide variety of calories in foods depending on who makes them and who dishes them out. And, people come in all different sizes, shapes, and metabolisms meaning that everyone burns off calories at a different rate.

The Exercises

  • One pig in a blanket (mini hot dog wrapped in dough) has about 66 calories. To burn off a serving of three you’d need to play catch for 68 minutes.

Enjoy the game — enjoy the party — enjoy the food!

Super Bowl Food Trivia

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Super Bowl Food Trivia

Professional football — as we know it – has been around since 1920, but the first Super Bowl, the annual championship of the National Football League (NFL), only dates back to January 1967.

Super Bowl Sunday certainly has the trappings of a holiday both in the US and in many expat communities. It’s the most watched annual television program in the US and ranks second (Thanksgiving is first) as the day for most food consumption. Over 20 million Americans attend Super Bowl parties and half of all Americans say they would rather go to a Super Bowl party than to a New Year’s Eve party.

It’s amazing how food has become associated with football — from tailgating to the food for the game.  Think of all the hand to mouth munching on chips, dips, and wings; a swig or two or three; a cookie here and there.  And then there’s the “real food” at halftime – or maybe there was pizza first followed by a selection of subs. By the end of the game do you have a clue about how much – or even what — you have popped into your mouth?

Super Bowl Food Facts

  • About one in twenty (9 million) Americans watch the game at a restaurant or a bar.
  • Americans double their average daily consumption of snacks on Super Bowl Sunday, downing more than 33 million pounds in one day.
  • The average Super Bowl watcher consumes 1,200 calories. Potato chips are the favorite munchie and account for 27 billion calories and 1.8 billion fat grams — the same as 4 million pounds of fat or equal to the weight of 13,000 NFL offensive linemen at 300 pounds each.
  • Nearly one in eight (13%) Americans order takeout/delivery food for the Super Bowl. The most popular choices are pizza (58%), chicken wings (50%), and subs/sandwiches (20%). Almost 70% of Super Bowl watchers eat a slice (or two or three) during the game.
  • The amount of chicken wings eaten clocks in at 90 million pounds or 450 million individual wings. It would take 19 chicken breasts to get the same amount of fat that you usually get from a dozen Buffalo wings.
  • On Super Bowl Sunday Americans eat an estimated 14,500 tons of potato chips, 4000 tons of tortilla chips, and eight million pounds of avocados. Five ounces of nacho cheese Doritos is equal to around 700 calories. You’d have to run the length of 123 football fields to burn them off.  You’d have to eat 175 baby carrots or 700 celery sticks to get the same number of calories.
  • According to 7-eleven, sales of antacids increase by 20% on the day after Super Bowl.
  • Pizza restaurants love Super Bowl Sunday – it’s their busiest day of the year, according to the National Restaurant Association. Papa John’s, Pizza Hut, and Domino’s sell twice as many pies as they do on any other day. Domino’s expects to sell 11 million slices.
  • The Hass Avocado Board predicts that over Super Bowl weekend approximately100 million pounds of guacamole will be eaten – and approximately 14,500 tons of chips are used to scoop it up.
  • About 2 million cases of beer are sold every year for Super Bowl – which might explain why 6% of Americans call in sick for work the next day.