The official Girl Scout cookie power rankings
Two bakeries provide cookies to the 110-plus councils in U.S.
We’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s get moving, shall we?
Welcome to the conclusive, unassailable and 100% correct Girl Scout Cookie Power Rankings.
I have pored and pondered over these delicious snacks, and have rated them by 1) taste (at room temperature) and 2) taste when they’re right out of the freezer.
Now for some quick housekeeping: Girl Scout cookies are unexpectedly complicated because two bakeries, ABC Bakers and Little Brownie Bakers, provide cookies to the 110-plus Girl Scout councils throughout the country.
And the division of labor is not broken up in any kind of predictable way, like, east of the Mississippi, you get one baker and west of it, you get the other. Each local council makes its own selection. In Orange County, for example, the scouts source cookies from ABC Bakers. In Los Angeles, cookies come from Little Brownie Bakers. Weird, eh?
For the purposes of these rankings, there are 12 types of Girl Scout cookies. But technically there are 17 different cookies; a number of the classics, like Thin Mints, are baked by both companies and have slight but distinct differences.
In some cases, there are also different names for the same cookie: Orange County has Peanut Butter Patties but Los Angeles has Tagalongs. For the sake of brevity, I’m counting that as one type of cookie, because they’re not structurally different in any meaningful way.
I am, however, distinguishing between the two S’Mores cookies, because they’re completely different — one is a sandwich cookie and the other is a chocolate-coated graham cookie. Now if only we could get cookie season to last year-round. On to the ratings!
1. Samoas/Caramel deLites: I was trying to figure out a way to serve up a hot take and pronounce that this was not the best Girl Scout cookie, but I would have been kidding myself and doing you a disservice. This is, simply, a stellar cookie, and superior to the others if only because there are so many different things going on. There’s the crunch of the cookie, which blends with the chewiness from the caramel, giving an almost nougat-like feel. Then there’s the toasty coconut flakes, followed by the chocolatecovered bottom and thin racing stripes across the top.
This is a good frozen cookie as well, with the initial crunch morphing into a stiff chewiness that slowly softens with each mastication. Frozen ranking: 2
2. Tagalongs/Peanut Butter Patties: It’s the cookie equivalent of Reese’s Pieces, a chocolatecoated cookie with creamy peanut butter smeared on it. Do I have to say more? (N.B. The peanut butter here is smooth and silky, in contrast to the graininess of that of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.) This was in the running for first place — it’s a great cookie in its own right . Frozen, this doesn’t perform quite as well. The peanut butter fades into the background and the cookie almost disappears, acquiring a meringuelike lightness. Frozen ranking: 7
3. Do-si-dos/Peanut Butter Sandwich: Peanut butter has been a great friend to me during quarantine, as I imagine it has for many people. Spread on the usual suspects, sure — apples, celery, toast — but also eaten alone, on a plastic takeout spoon while sitting on the couch, staring at a blank Google doc for the second consecutive hour. What did I learn during these long afternoons? A lot about myself.
But also that peanut butter tastes good anytime, and on pretty much everything. So it stands to reason that the Do-si-do, or Peanut Butter Sandwich, is a good cookie, if a little one-note. The peanut butter cookie outside is very crumbly, like a granola bar, but the taste combination — peanut butter and, well, peanut butter — is a winner. Frozen ranking: 9
4. Thin Mints: Thin Mints, per