Homemade Tagalongs are made with a buttery cookie base, peanut butter center and covered in milk chocolate, they’re better than the originals.

These Copycat Girl Scouts Tagalongs Cookies have become one of my favorite cookies to make and devour. Adding yet another cookies to my cookie addiction repertoire.

Photo of tagalong cookie with bite taken, on a cooling rackWhile I completely love those the original tagalongs cookies from the Girl Scouts and could literally eat an entire box on my own, there is still nothing like homemade.

I honestly feel those cute little girl scouts see me coming from a mile away with a sign on my head that says, “sucker for cookies”. I know I am not the only one who falls for the cookies and their cute little smiles. I always feel for the mom’s standing out there in the cold with them at the grocery store trying to push cookies like there is no tomorrow.overhead photo of tagalong cookies on cooling rack

So even though I much prefer these homemade tagalongs cookies I simply can’t resist their ever-so-cute sales pitches and delicious bites of heaven.

It really comes down to I love sponsoring them, helping them earn badges, raise money for their troop, and go camping. But let’s be real people these cookies are only available once a year. So what do we do after March?

A few years ago, this desperate girl had to make a batch of her own tagalongs cookies. I love the peanut butter center. There really is not a better combination than that of peanut butter and chocolate.

TAGALONGS BAKING TIPS

Can you freeze homemade Tagalongs?
Yes! All cookies can be frozen, but it is best to wrap them individually to freeze them and only do this once they have cooled completely. Another way to freeze then is to stack them in layers in a Ziplock bag or container, separating the layers using parchment paper. I personally love individually wrapping them as I feel they taste better. Also, sometimes cookies taste better frozen. Let them sit out on the counter to come to room temperature before eating.

How long will Tagalongs stay fresh in an airtight container?
If properly stored, these cookies will last upto to a few days at a normal room temperature and stored in an airtight container. If you freeze or put in the refrigerator they will last longer. I like storying them in the fridge.

photo of cookie scoop dropping peanut butter mixture on a sheet pan
For the past few years though I will say that I didn’t buy the tagalong cookies. Mainly because I wanted to save myself from the self-inflicted torture of debating on whether to eat the whole box in one hour or draw it out a few.

A few years I have lied to myself by thinking, I will buy the ones the kids like and not eat any. Well, that’s a joke. It always happens that on a busy afternoon, I find myself have eaten a ½ row of Thin Mints. Then I find myself consequently cursing the cute little girl from Jordan’s dance class that sold it to me.

I decided last year that if I am to eat cookies, I’m going to eat my favorite! That’s when I decided to pull it together and come up with my own Tagalong cookie. So I got my little helper, Jersey Cake and whipped up a batch.

photo of cutting out tagalong cookie dough with round cookie cutter on counter
The result is essentially identical, if not better. The butter cookie tastes fresh, making a complete difference. So while you may be tempted to just buy a box don’t. Try out these Copycat Girl Scout Tagalong Cookies from scratch, they won’t disappoint, I promise. Want to try some of your other Girls Scout favorites?

Try these Girl Scout inpsired treats! Samoa TrufflesHomemade Thin MintsPeanut Butter Sandwich Cookies, and Samoa Magic Bars.

Enjoy the cookies friends, life is too short not to enjoy a little sugar. XOXO San

Don’t forget to pin this recipe for COPYCAT GIRL SCOUT TAGALONG COOKIES to your favorite Pinterest board for later.

top photo: overhead of tagalong cookies bottom photo: close up of tagalong cookies with bite taken out

Tagalongs Cookies

Prep: 45 minutes
Cook: 30 minutes
Total: 1 hour 15 minutes
Servings: 24 -30
Calories: 221 kcal
Copycat Girl Scout Tagalong Cookies - Made with a butter cookie base, peanut butter center and covered in milk chocolate, they're better than the originals.

Ingredients
 

Peanut Butter Filling

  • 1 ¼ cup all natural peanut butter like Adam’s All-Natural Peanut Butter
  • 1 cup powder sugar sifted

Shortbread Cookies

  • 3/4 pound salted butter at room temperature
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
  • 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • Salt to taste, if wanted

Chocolate Coating

  • 1 lb. Milk Chocolate dipping candy I like Chocomaker

Instructions
 

Peanut Butter Filling

  • In a small mixing bowl, mix together peanut butter and powder sugar until it’s completely blended and no sugar can be seen.
  • On a cooking sheet, lay wax paper or grease the pan with cooking spray. Place ½ tablespoon of the peanut butter mixture on the prepared pan. I use my cookie dough scooper and use only ½ of scooper full of the peanut butter (I just eye ball it). Set in the refrigerator while making the cookies.

Shortbread Cookie

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  • In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix together the butter and 1 cup of sugar until they are just combined. Add the vanilla. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and salt if wanted, then add them to the butter-and-sugar mixture. Mix on low speed until the dough starts to come together. Dump onto a surface dusted with flour and shape into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.
  • Roll the dough 1/2-inch thick and cut with a 3 by 1-inch finger-shaped cutter. Place the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet.
  • Bake for 14-16 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Allow to cool to room temperature.
  • Once cool, take out peanut butter balls from the fridge. Using a spatula, remove the peanut butter from the pan. Place 1 ball in the middle of the shortbread cookie and use a butter knife to spread the peanut butter around the cookie. Repeat with remaining peanut butter balls and cookies. You will have some left over cookies (8-10) - just dip those in the left over chocolate.

Chocolate Coating

  • Melt chocolate per directions of the package. Once melted, place the cookie on a fork and dip into the chocolate. Remove the cookie from the chocolate once it is fully covered while still on the fork. Let the excess chocolate drip off and transfer on to wax paper to cool or greased cooling rack to harden.
Calories: 221kcalCarbohydrates: 27gProtein: 2gFat: 11gSaturated Fat: 7gCholesterol: 30mgSodium: 101mgPotassium: 22mgSugar: 13gVitamin A: 355IUCalcium: 6mgIron: 0.8mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know what you think!

This recipe was recently updated from it’s original posting date February 2014.

collage of all tagalong cookie photos

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155 Comments

  1. San, these look so so so amazing. I love girl scout cookies and they never come to my house. Tagalongs, thin mints and samoas are my favorite. So I can’t wait to try these ones and then some homemade thin mints (I’ve got a recipe for samoas already!) Thanks for sharing!

  2. Truthfully, I would have cooked the shortbread cookies and stopped there. I LOVE shortbread cookies. Can I exchange the sugar for agave or something else? I can’t eat white sugar. LOVE LOVE LOVE this post.

  3. Even though I have the Girl Scout Tag’s in the back of my van (we have 2 girl scouts) I will be making these! I love homemade cookies! And I bet my kids will enjoy helping me make these and claim they are 10 times better than the GS. 🙂 That’s why I love making treats. I always get told they are so much better than store bought.

  4. I am pinning this right now. These are my favorite cookies. I never buy them because I eat the whole box and and want more, but at $4 a box, that is tough.

  5. Ok, Sandra, these are my FAV Girl Scout cookies. And I don’t know any GS so I didn’t know that you now have to “place and order”. Therefore, I have no said order. (Yes, I’m a little bitter but moving on..)

    Anywhoo ~ I am very happy to have found you over at Twirl and Take A Bow party and I’m pinning this.
    I’d LOVE for you to share these over at my Brag About It link party on VMG206 if you get the chance!

    ~ Megin of VMG206
    http://www.vmg206.com/2014/02/brag-about-it-link-party-no-43-vmg206.html

  6. We usually buy a lot of girl scout cookies, but didn’t this year. (I’m eating Thin Mints as I leave this comment!) I am going to add this to my to do list with the kids…yum!

  7. Oh my this cookies look yummy, the gooey butter filling is enticing. i want a bite in those cookie. Thanks for sharing the recipe, will save this

  8. Yum tagalongs are my favorite too. I have to try this recipe sometime. Thanks for sharing this with us at Great Idea Thursdays. I’ll be featuring this.

  9. It’s surprised me how identically tasting these were, just minus the artificial taste that the real ones have. Bravo.

  10. What a great recipe for all of us Tagalong Cookie fans. Thank you so much for sharing this awesome post with Full Plate Thursday and have a great weekend!
    Come Back Soon!
    Miz Helen

  11. I so need to make these! Last time I bought a box of these cookies from the Girl Scouts there were like only 10 cookies in the box. Totally ridiculous for the price.

  12. Tagalongs are my favorite Girl Scout cookie. I’m so happy I can have them all year-round now! Thank you for linking to the In and Out of the Kitchen Link Party. Hope to see you next time.

    1. Julia – Thanks so much for the feature! Sorry I am just now sending you a thanks! I was in the Bahamas last week with the family and just got back! See you this week again! XO San

  13. Thank you for linking up at Tasty Tuesdays! I am featuring your post at this weeks party! I can’t wait to see what you link up this week! http://wp.me/p466oG-18B
    Have a terrific weekend!
    Cathy
    APeekIntoMyParadise.com
    #TastyTuesdays

    1. I love you Cathy – thanks so much for featuring this recipe!! I love your blog and parties, as always XO your biggest fan! xo San

  14. These look great! Just curious, why wouldn’t you make enough peanut butter spread to cover all of the cookies? Is the 1 1/4 cup equal to one jar?

    1. Linda – I have a few kids at my house that I watch during the week that hate peanut butter, I saved the cookie for him. If you do the recipe and add another halve of the same recipe, you will have more than enough for all the cookies. How many ounces is your peanut butter jar? Sorry for the late delay, I was in the Bahamas last week and jut got back. Enjoy!! XO San

    1. Alexis, thanks for the pin! Sorry to hear you missed out on the cookies!!! Although you saved some $, with them now costing $4 a box for maybe 10 cookies. You’ll love this recipe! XO San

  15. Thank you so much for the recipe! I just made these with GF flour and coconut palm sugar and they were divine!

  16. I just wanted to let you know that your recipe doesn’t say to use a round cookie cutter, although according to your pictures you did.
    “Roll the dough 1/2-inch thick and cut with a 3 by 1-inch finger-shaped cutter.”

  17. Pingback: Tagalong Blondies
  18. These are amazing!! The only thing I had to change was I used a little under 1/2 cup of confectionary sugar in the frosting because when I used 1 whole cup it turned the peanut butter too doughy. These are to die for. Thank you so much for the recipe!

  19. Made these last night, theyre amazing !

    Be careful which kind of butter you use though, mine didn’t have a high enough moisture content and i had to add about 1\4 stick more. You’ll be able to tell if your dough is too crumbly. Also, be conscious of the chocolate, you don’t want them tasting cheap and overly sweet !

  20. Delicious! My only complaint was that the cookies were a little heavy and buttery. However, everything else matched exactly with the Girl Scout cookies.

    I made these quite a bit smaller than the recipe said, trying to make them closer to the actual size of the Girl Scouts version, and I ended up with just the right amount of peanut butter to cover all of them. So that was nice. I did need a little extra chocolate, though.

  21. Kindly clarify something for me: in Step 7 of the Shortbread Cookie directions, it says to cut the chilled dough with a 3 by 1-inch “finger-shaped cutter”- I have read the directions over and over again yet can make no sense of this. Why would one use a “finger-shaped” cookie cutter (let alone find such a thing anywhere!) to cut the dough when the cookies are clearly a round shape? And one of the photos even shows someone’s hand using what appears to be a round biscuit cutter to cut the dough. These homemade Tagalong cookies sound lovely and I would love to make them but am perplexed by the “finger-shaped” cutter issue. Looking forward to your reply, and thank you!

    1. I honestly have no clue either! It must have been a typo or auto correct when entering the recipe when it was made in 2014. I would definitely say go with whatever size circle cookie cutter you have. I hope you enjoy these cookies!

  22. Pingback: Tagalong Blondies
  23. 5 stars
    Nothing beats a delicious copycat recipe like this! Cheaper and more delicious than the original… count me in!

  24. 5 stars
    These are actually one of the only cookies I will buy from the girl scouts! Love that I can make them at home and save a few dollars!

  25. 5 stars
    These look really delicious. Girl scout cookies are always an awesome snack; especially when you can make them yourself!

  26. 5 stars
    My fav cookie!! Going to make now. Why refrigerate the balls of peanut butter first? Could I just scoop them directly onto the cookies after they bake?

    1. Hi Whitney! Refrigerating the peanut butter just helps them hold their shape for dipping in the chocolate. It also helps set the chocolate faster as the rest will already be chilled! Putting peanut butter on hot cookies may make it melt just a bit, so at least cool the cookies first. If you don’t want to wait, I totally understand. It should work just fine 🙂

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