It's cookie time!
I keep eating Thin Mints but they're not making me thin
There’s a small light at the end of this cold, dark, wintry tunnel, because it’s Girl Scout cookie season! I’ve already ordered cookies online, because the Girl Scouts and I have both entered the digital age.
Every year, 1 million Girl Scouts raise more than $800 million by selling an average of 200 million boxes of cookies. Most of those are, predictably, Thin Mints. Raise your hand if you have Thin Mints stashed in your freezer. Raise your hand if you intended to put Thin Mints in your freezer but you just ate them all instead.
The cookie of the year
The new cookie for 2026 is the Exploremore, a chocolate sandwich cookie with chocolate-marshmallow-almond cream filling. Think Rocky Road ice cream.
The big three
The three perenially bestselling cookies are Thin Mints, Samoas (the ones with coconut, aka Caramel deLites) and Do-si-dos (the peanut butter sandwich cookie, aka Peanut Butter Sandwich).
Do-si-dos are not to be confused with Tagalongs (aka Peanut Butter Patties), which are the peanut butter cookies that are covered in chocolate.
Bakery vs. bakery
Why do some cookies have two different names? Because there are two commercial bakeries licensed to make Girl Scout cookies (ABC Bakers in Illinois and Little Brownie Bakers in Kentucky). The bakeries get to name the cookies, and they do not coordinate. This is why I say “Samoa” and you say “Caramel DeLite.”
Also on the menu
Each Girl Scout council can choose which particular cookies it wants to sell. The other options available for 2026 include Adventurfuls (brownie-like cookies topped with caramel cream, introduced in 2021); Lemon-Ups/Lemonades; and two gluten-free cookies, Toffee-tastics or Caramel Chocolate Chip.
The one cookie that is always on offer, even though it doesn’t sell that well, is the Trefoil, a shortbread cookie shaped like the Girl Scout badge, which is an homage to the very first Girl Scout cookie ever made.
The cookie that started it all
It was 1917. Muskogee, Oklahoma. The Mistletoe Troop baked some cookies to sell at their local high school. Five years later, the national Girl Scout magazine suggested that other troops sell cookies as fundraisers, and included this recipe:
GIRL SCOUT COOKIES
1 cup of butter, or substitute
1 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons of milk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2 cups of flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
Cream butter and sugar, add well beaten eggs, then milk, flavoring, flour and baking powder. Roll thin and sprinkle sugar on top. Bake in quick oven.
The year without cookies
The idea of fundraising with cookies caught on, and by 1936 the Girl Scouts were using commercial bakers to make their cookies.
During World War II, some Scouts had to take a break from selling cookies because of flour, butter and sugar rationing. Instead, they sold calendars.
The Cookie Queen
For almost 30 years, Elizabeth Brinton held the unofficial title of “Cookie Queen,” selling more than 100,000 boxes over her scouting career. In 1985, she sold 18,000 boxes of cookies — a record that stood until 2014, the year the Girl Scouts launched an online cookie sales platform. The current record stands at 32,484 boxes, set in 2021 by an 8-year-old cancer survivor.
Cookies we have loved and lost
The Girl Scouts are always introducing new cookies and retiring old ones. (Oh, how I miss Savannah Smiles!)
Two cookie flavors were retired last year: S’mores and Toast-Yay! (which looked and tasted like little pieces of French toast, so you can see why those might not have taken off).
Some other notable cookies that have been discontinued over the years:
• Kookaburras: Layers of crispy wafers and caramel coated in chocolate — not unlike a KitKat. Sold in the early 1980s.
• Forget-Me-Nots: Granola cookies sold from 1979-1981. We forgot them.
• Rah-Rah Raisins: Oatmeal cookies with raisins and yogurt-flavored chunks. Sold from 2014-16.
• Thank You Berry Munch: Cookies with cranberries, crispy rice, white fudge chips and two puns in the name. Sold from 2009-2014.
• Golden Yangles: Triangular cheese crackers, sold in the 1980s. Excuse me, cheese crackers? Are we also going to start selling popcorn like the Boy Scouts? Give me Thin Mints or give me death.