Tagalong Cookie Bars — Say hello to year-round Girl Scout cookie season with these delish bars! All the flavors of the classic cookies in easy bar form!!
Copycat Tagalongs Recipe
I think that Girl Scout Tagalong Cookies live in the shadows of Samoas and Thin Mints. But since I’ve already recreated fast, easy, DIY versions of both Samoas and Thin Mints, it’s time to bring Tagalongs into the limelight.
After all, who can resist a buttery soft shortbread base, topped with creamy peanut butter, and finished with a satisfying layer of chocolate?
Rather than making individual cookies, which would include rolling and cutting out shortbread and then dipping each cookie individually in chocolate, I took the flavors in classic Girl Scout Tagalongs and made bars. Bars are so much faster, easier, and less labor-intensive than cookies.
I adapted my own Peanut Butter Caramel Twix Bars recipe by simply omitting the caramel. Love it when the answers to my recipe prayers are already in my own archives! This is a no-mixer recipe that comes together quickly and easily.
The melt-in-your mouth shortbread is the perfect base for the salty-and-sweet peanut butter, and there’s just enough chocolate to satisfy your chocolate cravings. I don’t necessarily know if it’s a good thing to be able to have year-round Girl Scout cookie season with so much ease right from your kitchen. But let’s go with counting it as a good thing.
What’s in Tagalong Cookie Bars?
To make these copycat Tagalongs Girl Scout cookie bars, you’ll need:
- Unsalted butter
- All-purpose flour
- Confectioners’ sugar
- Cornstarch
- Vanilla extract
- Creamy peanut butter
- Salt
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Vegetable shortening
How to Make Tagalong Cookie Bars
You’ll first need to make the shortbread dough and press it firmly into the bottom of an 8-inch square baking dish. Bake the crust until barely set, then set aside.
Then, make the creamy peanut butter filling (the best part!). Simply stir together the filling ingredients, then smooth over the still-warm shortbread crust.
To make the chocolate topping, melt the chocolate chips and shortening. Stir to smooth out, then spread evenly over peanut butter layer.
Lastly, cover pan with a sheet of foil and allow bars to cool and set up for at least 4 hours, or overnight, before slicing and serving.
Can I Use Natural Peanut Butter?
No, both natural and homemade peanut butter are too runny for this recipe. You want to use a creamy peanut butter from a brand like Jif or Skippy.
Tips for Making Tagalong Cookie Bars
When baking the shortbread crust, you’re looking for it to set up but you don’t want it to become overly golden.
To prevent the chocolate topping from becoming too hard, I added a little shortening to the melted chocolate. The shortening is optional, but recommended.
Lastly, you can pop these Girl Scout Tagalong cookie bars into the fridge to speed up the cooling process. However, you’ll then need to allow them to come to room temperature for a few minutes before slicing into them so neither the crust nor the chocolate cracks.
Pin This Recipe
Enjoy AverieCooks.com Without Ads! 🆕
Go Ad Free
Tagalongs Cookie Bars
Ingredients
Shortbread Crust
- ½ cup unsalted butter, extremely soft (1 stick)
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ⅓ cup confectioners’ sugar
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Peanut Butter Filling
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1 heaping cup creamy peanut butter, not homemade or ‘natural’, it’s too thin and runny
- ½ cup confectioners’ sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt, optional and to taste
Chocolate Layer
- 1 heaping cup, about 8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 2 tablespoons vegetable shortening, optional but recommended so chocolate doesn’t set up overly firm and crack upon slicing
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray; set aside.
- Shortbread Crust
- Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, cutting in the butter with a pastry cutter or two forks until until a sandy, crumbly mixture forms.
- Turn crumbly mixture out into prepared pan and using your fingertips or a spatula, hard-pack the crumbs to form an even, flat, smooth crust layer. Pierce crust with a fork in a dozen places so steam can escape while it bakes.
- Bake for 12 to 13 minutes, or until crust has just barely set. It should not be golden or browned and should still be white, but crusted over and set. While crust bakes, make the filling.
- Peanut Butter Filling
- Add the butter to a medium microwave-safe bowl and heat on high power to melt, about 1 minute. Add the remaining ingredients and stir until smooth.
- Spread filling over crust using a spatula, knife, or offset knife. Crust does not have to be cool, and spreading filling while crust is still warm is beneficial to help it smooth out more easily; set aside.
- Chocolate Layer
- Add the ingredients to a medium microwave-safe bowl and heat on high power to melt, about 1 minute. Stop to check and stir, and heat in 15-second bursts until mixture can be stirred smooth.
- Pour chocolate over peanut butter and shake the pan a bit to help chocolate slide and disperse. Then smooth it very lightly with an offset spatula, knife, or offset knife.
- Cover pan with a sheet of foil and allow bars to cool and set up for at least 4 hours, or overnight, before slicing and serving.
- Alternatively, place pan in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours to help expedite the cooling process, noting that sometimes chocolate becomes a bit dull-looking (cosmetic only and doesn’t effect taste) if refrigerated. If bars have become very cold, allow them to come up to room temperature for a few minutes before slicing so neither crust nor chocolate cracks.
Notes
- Bars will keep airtight at room temp for up to 1 week.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
©averiecooks.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited.
More Peanut Butter Desserts:
Peanut Butter Brookies — These brookies are soft and chewy, with peanut butter and chocolate married together in every bite. All you need is two bowls, and no mixer is required!
Peanut Butter Caramel Twix Bars (almost no-bake) – Just like the classic candy bar that you can make at home and so easy!
Caramel Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Gooey Bars – Keep the napkins handy for these soft, gooey bars dripping with the best caramel-peanut butter sauce!
Salted Caramel Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bars — Made with salted caramel PB (yes it’s a thing!) Soft, chewy, gooey and so irresistible!
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bars – Super soft bars that just melt in your mouth from all the PB! And all the chocolate!
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookie Bars – The taste and texture of cookies, minus the work of making individual cookies. Soft, chewy, and loaded with chocolate chunks!
Nutella-Swirled Peanut Butter Chip Blondies – Easy one-bowl, no mixer. Super soft and gooey!
Peanut Butter Blossom Cookie Bars — Just like the classic cookies except made as cookie bars rather than individual cookies!
Triple Peanut Butter Monster Cookie Bars – Peanut butter used 3 different ways. Great for pantry odds-and-ends cleanout!
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Nutter Butter Bars – Nutter Butters baked in along with PB and chocolate chips!
Peanut Butter Cup Cookie Dough Crumble Bars – Peanut butter cups baked into soft, gooey, chewy bars!
Peanut Butter Comfort — My cookbook with 100+ Peanut Butter recipes!
FINALLY someone is giving love to the BEST girl scout cookie! All my siblings would fight over the thin mints and the caramel delites and I was just there, eating my uncontested peanut butter patties (i.e. tagalongs in WI) with a smile and the knowledge that I didn’t have to hide them or share them.
The peanut butter in them was so unique – not chalky like peanut butter cups, or creamy like JIF, but the perfect hybrid of the two.
I want them NOW. In bar form? YES YES YES!!!
That’s funny that you would go nuts for the Tagalongs while leaving behind the Thin Mints and Samoas! I guess you were a true PB lover from an early age :)
And yes the PB was so unique. I haven’t bought a box of the real thing in years because, well, I don’t need a box of GS Cookies with all my other desserts! But yes you are right!
I’ll only eat half the pan, girl scouts honor. :)
Look at those perfect layers! I’m sure I could easy eat 2 or 3 of these in one sitting :)
And I would have gladly donated the pan to you! I definitely don’t need anymore PB + Chocolate in my house :)
Tagalongs have always been my absolute favorite Girl Scout Cookie! I will definitely have to give these a try.
I love how you make your own versions of classic treats! This one looks great!
Tagalongs are my absolute favorite Girl Scout cookie. I feel like they usually don’t get the love they deserve…except for now! These bars look delicious and so un-fussy. A perfect combination for a clean kitchen and satisfied sweet tooth. I don’t go to Dairy Queen a lot anymore but they did have a really great tagalong blizzard awhile ago. Now I can just make these bars and add them to ice cream!
I bet these are even better than the cookie! That thick layer of peanut butter, girl. I’m smitten!
Oh, this looks delicious!!
Genius. By the way, you are QUEEN of the perfectly layered bar cookie!
Jon would love these–I think tagalongs come in slightly ahead of thin mints for him. I love copycat recipes–you never know when a craving will strike! Love your perfect layers–I bet these are spot on delish!
Oh how interesting that he would take these over Thin Mints. Wow, he really is a true PB lover! Music to my ears :)
I love these..obviously. :) Pinned!
Thanks for pinning and you can never have too many PB recipes, right :)
Tagalongs have always been my favorite Girl Scout cookie!!! (why do they come with so little in a box?!) These look FABULOUS!!! I usually avoid chocolate covered recipes because it’s too putsy so these are perfect! I don’t think I could wait 3 hours for these to set before digging in ;)
Putsy and fussy and just too much monkey-business is usually the norm – I agree! These are the opposite and so easy!
Happiness found!! OMG Averie these bars look fantastic!
Happy weekend, my friend! :)
I have NEVER had a tagalong! Back to my comment about Girl Scouts having different cookies in Canada.
Clearly I need to eat a whole pan of these to remedy what I have been missing out on right? ;) Pinned!
Crazy how different things are!! Tagalongs are sometimes called Peanut Butter Patties but rarely and everyone just knows them as Tagalongs. Well that’s an excuse for you to come to the US on an eating trip, right :)
Being able to make Tagalongs all year round…a dream come true! Thank you Averie for this recipe. The bar form of these cookies make the kitchen a lot less messy. Dipping things in chocolate usually results in a huge mess in my kitchen. I can’t wait to try these.
Huge mess in mine too and these are nothing of the sort! You just dump that melted chocolate on the big slab of bars, nothing individual to worry about dipping, and you’re done!
Averie, I love you. But I have some swear words coursing through my brain right now because I made something VERY similar to this for next week, and yep. The biggest difference is that yours are much better, because let’s face it, you’re you.
Thanks for recognizing the glory of the Tagalong! It’s my personal favorite GS cookie. They’re the best! And so are you. :)
You are too sweet and can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with! That’s usually my specialty…posting something right after someone else does. Well you can never have too many ways to eat PB :)