This Whimsical 80's Girl Scout Cookie Paired Rice Krispies And Twix

Every year, the communities that host Girl Scout troops are treated to an up-close and personal view of free enterprise, as the young ladies and their troop leaders gather outside grocery stores and in other public places to entice passersby to purchase a box (or two, or three) of Girl Scout cookies. Today, more than 100 years after the sales began with home-baked cookies, Girl Scout cookie sales raise hundreds of millions of dollars each year with the vast majority of the money staying in the communities where the cookies are sold to support local Girl Scout activities. The types of cookies available from the Girl Scouts have fluctuated over the years, although three varieties — Thin Mints, Peanut Butter Sandwich (Do-Si-Dos), and Shortbread (Trefoils) — have become perennial offerings.

Otherwise, the Girl Scouts have regularly changed up cookies during the decades in which they've been selling them. The list of discontinued Girl Scout cookies is surprisingly long, and includes everything from shortbread Thanks-A-Lots imprinted with the words "thank you" in different languages, to sandwich-style Van'Chos with separate sleeves of vanilla and chocolate cookies with a layer of vanilla cream filling between two cookies. The Girl Scouts don't provide much insight into how cookie varieties are chosen or discontinued, except to say that the national organization and local councils "partner with ... licensed bakers (either ABC Bakers or Little Brown Bakers) in the development of Girl Scout Cookies." There's one discontinued variety that combined the texture and flavors of Rice Krispies and Twix.

Among the more lamented of the bygone Girl Scout cookies are Kookaburras, which combined Rice Crispies and Twix candy, per Mental Floss. Kookaburras — a crispy rice wafer covered with a layer of caramel and dipped in milk chocolate — were available from the Girl Scouts briefly in the 1980s. At least one fan of Kookaburras, smitten by them in the 1980s when her sister was in the Brownies, kept the memory of its taste until 2011, when she tried to recreate it at home. As published in Phoenix New Times, the recipe starts with Rice Krispies and uses marshmallows, caramel cubes and chocolate chips to arrive at a result their creator said, "aren't quite Kookaburras, but they are chewy ... and if I say so myself, delicious."

Hope also shone briefly a few years ago for Kookaburras fans when the Aldi grocery chain was selling Benton's Delights Salted Caramel cookies, described as cocoa cookies filled with cocoa creme and caramel filling and coated in chocolate. Apparently not now available from Aldi, the salted caramel cookies were touted in a 2019 post on Aisle of Shame, an independent blog addressing all things Aldi, as a reasonable facsimile of Kookaburras. That's not at all a stretch, inasmuch as the same Aisle of Shame post noted similarities between other Benton's cookies available at Aldi and Girl Scout cookies including Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Patties.