The Girl Scouts share their original 100-year-old cookie recipe


Girl Scout Cookie season has officially arrived with its girls in green outfits selling Thin Mints, Peanut Butter Patties (you might remember them as Tagalongs) and the new S'mores flavor, which the organization developed for the 100th anniversary of Girl Scout Cookies. But long before those flavors existed, Girl Scouts sold simple sugar cookies baked at home—and to help celebrate the occasion, the organization has shared the recipe with People.

The tradition started in 1917 when the Mistletoe Troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma, baked a few batches to sell at a local high school. Five years later, Florence E. Neil, a Girl Scouts director in Chicago shared a recipe with the American Girl magazine, which was published by the Girl Scouts at the time. The recipe was given to the 2,000 Scouts who started to bake the cookies and sell them as a fundraiser for 25 or 30 cents a dozen. That tradition held until 1934 when one chapter in Philadelphia started working with a bakery to produce the cookies commercially.

Related: Make Girls Scouts cookies at home

These days, there are two commercial producers for the cookies—and hot debate over which producer and flavor is best. For a brutally honest review of all the cookie flavors, check out what one Girl Scout has to say:

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