48 Fun Facts About Girl Scout Cookie

At which 2016 awards show did host Chris Rock help Girl Scouts sell cookies to the stars?

The Academy Awards audience handed over $65,243, by Rock's count, to his daughters' troop as it worked the aisles; the stunt opened the hundredth-anniversary year of scouts selling cookies.

Patch Pals, announced for the 2027 season, are the first Girl Scout cookies made for which animals?

Dogs get soft-baked, blueberry muffin-flavored treats developed with BARK, the company behind BarkBox; the name comes from the four scout 'patch' designs baked into them.

What kind of cookie was the simple recipe that a Girl Scout magazine printed in 1922 for troops to sell?

Sugar cookie ingredients for six or seven dozen cost 26 to 36 cents, the article reckoned, and troops could charge 25 to 30 cents a dozen, so one batch brought in several times its cost.

Trefoils, the classic shortbread cookies, are baked in the shape of what?

The Girl Scout emblem is a trefoil, meaning 'three leaves', one for each part of the Girl Scout Promise; New York's scouts bought their own trefoil cutting die for bakery cookies back in 1935.

In which 1991 film does a girl ask whether Girl Scout cookies are 'made from real Girl Scouts'?

The Addams Family has Wednesday selling lemonade when a scout asks if it is made from real lemons and offers to buy a cup if Wednesday buys her cookies; the deadpan question is Wednesday's reply.

Before commercial bakeries took over in the 1930s, who baked the cookies that Girl Scout troops sold?

The girls and their mothers baked at home, the mothers serving as 'technical advisers', then packed the cookies in wax paper bags sealed with a sticker to sell door to door.

Which company was the first commercial baker licensed by Girl Scouts of the USA in 1936?

Keebler-Weyl had baked for Philadelphia's scouts since 1934, when theirs became the first council to hire a commercial bakery; it is the same Keebler later famous for its cookie-baking elves.

Why did Girl Scouts begin selling calendars during World War II?

Sugar, flour and butter ran short in wartime, so the first Girl Scout calendars went on sale in 1944 to keep troop funds coming in; by 1948 the cookies were back, with 29 bakers licensed.

In 2018, which chain began selling coffee flavored like Girl Scout cookies?

Dunkin' Donuts licensed three cookie-inspired flavors, among them its first ever peanut butter coffee, and some shops invited local troops inside at weekends to sell the real thing.

In 1951 the cookies came in three varieties: Sandwich, Shortbread and what?

Chocolate Mints are today's Thin Mints; the other two were a filled sandwich cookie and the plain shortbread that lives on as Trefoils.

Do-si-dos cookies share their name with a move from which kind of dancing?

Square dancing's do-si-do has two partners circle each other back to back, and the word is a worn-down form of the French dos-à-dos, 'back to back'.

Samoas are chocolate-striped cookies covered in which toasted ingredient?

Coconut and chocolate stripes also turn up on Coconut Dreams, a supermarket cookie from the corporate family of the Samoas bakery; out of the box, one reviewer wrote, you could not tell the two apart.

Toffee-tastic cookies carry a certification seal on the box for being free of what?

Gluten is kept out even though the same bakery handles wheat: by the Girl Scouts' account the line is cleaned between runs and tested, and an outside certifier, NSF, puts its seal on the box.

What does ABC Bakers call the cookie that Little Brownie Bakers sells as Samoas?

Caramel deLites are no straight copy: ABC finishes its version with a milkier chocolate where Samoas get a darker coating, and the two bakers measure out their ingredients differently.

What does ABC Bakers call the cookie that Little Brownie Bakers sells as Tagalongs?

Peanut Butter Patties list sugar as their first ingredient, while Tagalongs list peanut butter first, so the cookie named for its filling is the one that carries less of it.

Do-si-dos, also sold as Peanut Butter Sandwiches, are peanut butter filling between what kind of cookies?

Oatmeal cookies hold the filling in a cookie that was long one of just three varieties every licensed baker had to make, which is why it turns up whichever bakery supplies a council.

Which Girl Scout cookie is the best seller nationwide?

Thin Mints top the Girl Scouts' own ranking, yet they come in two versions: one bakery's is crunchier and mintier, the other's richer, with a smoother chocolate coating.

Where did Girl Scout Cookie Championship, a 2020 baking contest, air?

Food Network had actress Alyson Hannigan host as bakers turned the cookies into over-the-top desserts; the winner got an outdoor adventure and a year's supply of cookies.

In 2021, how did a tech company deliver Girl Scout cookies to doorsteps in one Virginia town?

By autonomous drone: Wing, owned by Google's parent company, hovered over front lawns in Christiansburg and lowered a few boxes at a time on a tether, having promised to fly 3,000 boxes that spring.

Which of these is true of the Girl Scouts' chocolate-mint cookies, whichever bakery makes them?

They are vegan at both bakeries, the only variety that is, so a vegan customer anywhere in the country can order them; Little Brownie Bakers makes no other vegan cookie.

Sparkables, announced for the 2027 season, are billed as the first Girl Scout cookie made to be what?

Allergy-friendly here means baked in a facility that avoids the nine major food allergens; the Girl Scouts say scouts themselves had pushed for such a cookie, which was developed with the brand Partake.

Adventurefuls, launched in 2022, are brownie-inspired cookies topped with what?

Caramel-flavored creme and sea salt top a cookie that both licensed bakeries launched together in 2022, so unlike Samoas or Tagalongs it goes by one name wherever it is sold.

Which cookie launched as an online-only, limited-supply item in 2023 and was dropped that year?

Raspberry Rally sold out so quickly that boxes turned up on eBay at many times their price, and the Girl Scouts protested that resales like those earn the troops nothing.

Which rocky-road-inspired sandwich cookie joined the Girl Scout lineup for the 2026 season?

Exploremores sandwich chocolate, marshmallow and toasted-almond creme, and they took over from the campfire-themed S'mores cookie, which was retired after the 2025 season.

Which breakfast dish inspired an icing-dipped Girl Scout cookie sold from 2021 to 2025?

French toast gave Toast-Yay! its flavour and its look: each cookie was a miniature slice of bread, stamped with the trefoil and dipped in icing on one side.

Which of these is on the Girl Scouts' official list of five skills the cookie program teaches?

Money management sits beside goal setting, decision making, people skills and business ethics; in practice, a scout learns to handle the money herself, collecting payment and giving change.

In an average selling season, roughly how many packages of cookies do Girl Scouts sell?

About 200 million boxes go in a season of only a few months, and during those months Girl Scout Cookies outsell Oreo.

Troop 6000, which sold over 32,000 boxes in a week in 2018, is made up of New York girls living where?

In homeless shelters: the troop hoped to sell 6,000 boxes at its first ever cookie stand, and customers who queued for up to an hour also handed over more than $15,000 in donations.

Who do the Girl Scouts say decides how a troop spends its share of the cookie money?

The troop's own members choose, and they have real money to work with: once the bakers are paid, everything left stays with the local council and its troops, often going toward a trip or a community project.

In which month do the Girl Scouts officially kick off their national cookie season?

January brings the national launch and most sales run until April, but start dates differ from area to area, which is why a neighbour's troop may be out selling weeks before yours.

Who sets the price of a box of Girl Scout Cookies?

Each local council sets its own price, which is why a box can cost more in one city than in the next; the council also picks which of the two bakers supplies it.

How do the Girl Scouts of the USA officially describe their annual cookie sale?

The world's largest girl-led entrepreneurial program brings in about $800 million a season, yet the scouts bake none of it: two licensed commercial bakeries make every box.

Are Girl Scout Cookies halal certified?

Yes, every variety: the Girl Scouts say all their cookies are now certified both halal and kosher, so one table serves customers who keep either diet.

What is the name of the online sales platform the Girl Scouts launched for the 2014-15 cookie season?

Digital Cookie let scouts take orders through their own web pages and a mobile app for the first time, ending a long-standing ban on selling the cookies online.

Where did 1980s 'Cookie Queen' Elizabeth Brinton set up the booth that helped her sell some 100,000 boxes?

A subway station: she watched rush-hour crowds pour into the Washington Metro and reasoned that she could reach thousands there instead of going door to door; her first day's stock was gone within hours.

In 2017 an 11-year-old scout's sales letter went viral and sold over 15,000 boxes because it did what?

Gave some cookies bad reviews: New Jersey's Charlotte McCourt scored each variety out of ten for a rich family friend, calling one 'as flavorless as dirt', and TV host Mike Rowe read her letter out on Facebook.

What had the Girl Scouts' bakers all but removed from every cookie variety by the 2007 season?

Trans fats fell below half a gram a serving in all twelve varieties, low enough for the label to say zero, and the Girl Scouts promised that the reworked recipes kept 'the same great taste'.

Who founded the Girl Scouts of the USA in Savannah, Georgia on March 12, 1912?

Juliette Gordon Low went by Daisy all her life, the name the youngest Girl Scouts now carry; a grain of good-luck rice thrown at her wedding lodged in her ear and cost her much of her hearing.

The first known Girl Scout cookie sale, in 1917, took place in which state, then just ten years old?

Oklahoma's Mistletoe Troop, in Muskogee, sold cookies in the high school cafeteria to pay for gifts for soldiers of the First World War; a statue of a scout selling cookies now stands outside the town's museum.

In 2017, which cereal giant turned two Girl Scout cookies into breakfast cereals?

General Mills teamed up with the Girl Scouts on two sweetened corn cereals, one minty and chocolatey, the other a Caramel Crunch modeled on Samoas, but sold them only as limited editions.

What did President Reagan do when 'Cookie Queen' Elizabeth Brinton pitched him cookies in the Oval Office?

Bought one of each: asked which cookie was his favorite, Reagan diplomatically took a box of every kind; she had won the appointment by writing to her congressman for help.

Two Girl Scouts' campaign over palm oil in the cookies began with a project to protect which animal?

The orangutan was their Bronze Award project at age 11; while researching it they learned that palm oil plantations were destroying its rainforest home, and that the same oil was in the cookies they sold.

Which Girl Scout cookie replaced Savannah Smiles, the powdered-sugar lemon wedges, in 2020?

Lemon-Ups, baked with messages such as 'I am a go-getter', replaced Savannah Smiles only where Little Brownie Bakers supplies the council; areas served by ABC Bakers kept their own lemon cookie, Lemonades.

The Girl Scouts and both their bakers say every cookie is made without which sweet ingredient?

High-fructose corn syrup is ruled out by both bakers, but regular corn syrup is not: each baker's chocolate-striped caramel cookie lists it, along with invert sugar and sweetened condensed milk.

Which Italian food company agreed in 2019 to buy one of the two Girl Scout cookie bakeries?

Ferrero, the maker of Nutella, agreed to pay Kellogg's $1.3 billion for a bundle of snack brands; Little Brownie Bakers came with them, and with it the rights to bake Samoas and Do-si-dos.

Golden Yangles, sold by Girl Scouts in the 1980s, were unusual for being which kind of snack?

Cheddar cheese crackers, yet sold under the Girl Scout Cookies name: Golden Yangles were a savory oddity in the 1980s line-up, and they were dropped in the early 1990s.

A Long Island Girl Scout council ships donated boxes of cookies overseas each year to whom?

US service members get them through Operation Cookie: DHL Express donates the shipping, and the truck gets a police escort to Kennedy Airport for the send-off.

Which safety practice must Girl Scouts always follow when selling cookies?

Using the buddy system is 'not just safe' but 'more fun', say the official tips, which also bar scouts from giving customers their last names and from ever stepping inside a customer's home or car.