Canadian foodies create new ways with Girl Guide cookies

In this undated file photo, Pathfinder Sadie Gibbs, centre, is flanked by Girl Guides Grace Plumley, left, Morgan Burke, all from Lantzville, British Columbia's Hurford District Girl Guides, pose for a photo with Girl Guide Cookies. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/ho-Kimberly Plumley)

TORONTO -- Some well-known chefs and bakers have come up with new ways to enjoy Girl Guide cookies.

Celeb cooks including Massimo Capra and Bal Arneson took the classic chocolate and vanilla sandwich-style cookies as well as the chocolate mint cookies and worked them into cheesecake, cupcakes, hot chocolate, coffee cake and trifle.

Girl Guides of Canada challenged the chefs to come up with new concoctions in time for its spring cookie sale. Girls and young women will be selling cookies in Sears stores across the country this weekend to support activities, community service projects and international adventures.

Perhaps the most unusual recipe is Capra's Minted Chocolate Salame, which mixes chocolate mint and classic vanilla cookies with eggs, rum or coffee, butter, sugar, chocolate and sponge cake crumbs to create a sweet log.

Vancouver-based Arneson, host of Food Network Canada's "Spice Goddess," crushes the classic vanilla and chocolate cookies to make the crust of No Bake Chai Cheesecake.

The recipes are available at www.girlguides.ca, via Pinterest and from the Guides visiting Sears this weekend.

Heather White and Lori Joyce, stars of "The Cupcake Girls" and the owners of a chain of shops, created Brownie Cupcakes. The Victoria natives gussied up a cake mix with vanilla cookies, evaporated milk and butter and then iced the morsels with a smooth cream cheese icing.

Kary Osmond, former host of CBC-TV's "Best Recipes Ever," grates mint chocolate cookies into hot milk and cocoa for Minty Hot Chocolate while Toronto caterers Elle Daftarian and Caspar Haydar of Petite and Sweet developed Vanilla Banana Trifle using vanilla Girl Guide cookies.

Home economist and cookbook author Emily Richards of Guelph, Ont., created Chocolate Vanilla Coffee Cake, which she says can be enjoyed with coffee or a glass of milk. She says incorporating classic vanilla and chocolate cookies into the mix gives the finished cake a speckled look.

Girl Guide cookies started in 1927, when a leader in Regina baked cookies for girls in her group to sell to raise money for uniforms and camping equipment.