The Girl Scouts of America have a new cookie baker for some parts of the country and, in a business move stupider than New Coke, have renamed some of their best-sellers (Though, as some of our readers kindly point out , other parts of the country have the "new" names for ages).

In my neck of the woods, Samoas are now "Caramel DeLites," which sounds like the name of a dietetic candy old ladies buy at the Dollar Tree. Tagalongs are now "Peanut Butter Patties, Do-Si-Dohs are "Peanut Butter Sandwiches" and Trefoils are "Shortbread," names which suggest either a wildly subversive anti-consumerist campaign a la No Logo (Declare Independence from Corporate Cookie! We Don't Need No Name-Brand Baked Goods!) or a newly minted Robotic Cookie Namer down at Girl Scout HQ. All-Abouts (which was a weird name, I admit) are now "Thanks-a-Lots." Try saying that un-sarcastically.

In honor of my favorite GS cookie, I created this Samoa Cake - layers of génoise cake brushed with caramel simple syrup and spread them with alternating layers of chocolate caramel ganache frosting and soft salty caramel, then iced with more chocolate caramel ganache blanketed in toasted coconut flakes. It's tall, rich and incredibly sweet, half-cake, half-candy bar. Take that, Caramel DeLite!

Read on for the recipe.

Once a year the Girl Scouts are unleashed on the world and ask us if we want to buy some of their cookies. As if we could even try to exist without their shortbread and minty chocolate wafers.

My favorite has always been the Samoa. Chocolate and caramel and coconut...wow, I used to eat an entire box in one sitting. But then like all addicts I'd want more and want to sell anything I could just to get a few more in my mouth. What can a person do if they love Samoas and they vanish for another year?

Little Debbie to the rescue!

A former Slashfoodie herself, Nicole is the extraordinary baker behind Baking Bites -- a recipe blog for anyone with flour on their sleeves and a taste for the divine. She stepped away from the kitchen (actually, the horse stable) to chat with us a bit about life since Slashfood, and why her brownies are fudgier than mine.

What have you been up to since leaving Slashfood?
I write Baking Bites now. That's pretty much what I've been doing food-wise since I left Slashfood. It's not a very exciting answer.

So are you dedicating more time Baking Bites now?
Well, before I wrote for Slashfood, I had a blog for a couple of years called Baking Sheet, which I updated a couple of times per week. I kept that going while writing for Slashfood, but after I left, I changed the name of the site and made it more formal. I dedicate more time to my personal blog now than I did while I was writing – and before I was writing – for Slashfood.

It's clear from reading about you that you love to cook everything, so why a site mainly baking?
Because I like baking. All cooking is great, but for me, baking is really interesting. I like the flavors and how everything comes together. I love the magic and the science of the oven. Cooking for me is ... I don't want to say it easier, because I don't find baking difficult, but it is just not just as interesting to me usually. You can go from grilling a chicken to grilling a steak, but baking a cake is a little more special.

Anything happening in the kitchen today?
Not at the moment. Last night I made a lemon cake and later I might make some flatbread. The flatbread isn't set in stone yet. I'll make a list of things that I want to make but it changes. I'll get a whim for something with mint or vanilla and I'll totally change my mind.

When I mentioned that Girl Scout cookie season was starting, there were many comments about Lemon Pastry Cremes, one of the retired cookie flavors that featured a light pastry cookie and a creamy lemon filling. As far as I've heard, the reason that they were discontinued is that they were switched from ABC Bakeries to Little Brownie Bakers, the second bakery that produces the Girl Scouts' cookies, and that Little Brownie Bakers lacks the right kind of equipment to produce them.

The Girl Scouts seems to retire one every few years, if not more often. Off the top of my head, I can think of several past favorites that are now gone.

• Lemon Coolers were light, crisp cookies with a bold flavor and dusted in powdered sugar.
• Double Dutch were chocolate, chocolate chip cookies.
• Ice Berry Piñatas looked vaguely like Danish pastries, with jam at the center of a tender cookie and a drizzle of icing. http://baking.about.com/od/familybaking/a/girlscoutcookie_2.htm
• Animal Treasures were just the same as the current "All Abouts" and "Thanks" cookies, with a butter cookie dipped in chocolate, as were Friendship Circles Cookies.
• Ole Oles were light, round, powdered sugar-covered cookies with vanilla, pecans and coconut.

It's that time of year again: Girl Scout cookie season. This year all Girl Scout cookies are trans-fat free so you can eat them with slightly less guilt than before.

There are two bakeries that produce Girl Scout Cookies, Little Brownie Bakers and ABC Bakers . Both produce some of the classic cookies, including Thin Mints, Samoas, Trefoils and Tagalongs (a.k.a. Peanut Butter Patties), but each of the bakeries make several cookies that the other does not. Little Brownie Bakers has three original creations this year. Sugar Free Little Brownies are little chewy chocolate squares "packed with chocolate chips" that are diabetic friendly and All-Abouts are all about "Enjoying life as a true Girl Scout" and appear to have a chocolate-flavored coating on one side.

ABC Bakers has Reduced Fat Cartwheels, which are "oatmeal rounds with a cinnamon burst in every bite" and lemon-iced shortbread Lemonades in their lineup this spring, as well as cookies with the odd name Thanks-a-Lot appear to be the same as the All-Abouts from LBB, although they have the words for "thanks" in five different languages written on them.

I'm planning on passing on both the All-Abouts and Thanks-a-Lots, but I'll consider getting a box of Lemonades with my Samoas, Tagalongs and Trefoils this year.

As if we didn't really need more reason to buy an extra box or two of your favorite Girl Scout cookies, I have just stumbled across the website for one of two companies that bake the Girl Scout cookies that send us into a thin, minty frenzy every Spring. The website is obviously geared toward their happy little salesgirls, but they also list recipes, not for the cookies, themselves, but that use the cookies as ingredients.

Samoas by themselves are pretty rich (I consider them candy, myself), but they can be used to make Mocha Samoa Zuccoto, a chocolate cake-like base with a mascarpone and chocolate filling and crushed Samoas as a topping.

Sound too rich? Then what about Levitating Layers, alternating layers of Samoas, sweetened cream cheese, and chocolate pudding. And it's not just Samoas. You can use Tagalongs, Thin Mints, and Trefoils to make a Peanut Butter Mint Bombe.

I'll just take my Cafe cookies with a cup of coffee.

I have never been a member of the Thin Mint fan club when it comes to Girl Scout cookies. Certainly, every year around this time, I do my duty of purchasing a few boxes of the cookies from co-workers (entrepreneurial girls always get their parents to do all the heavy-selling), but I wasn't part of the frenzied masses who would buy five six, seven boxes of Thin Mints, keep in the freezer, and eat year round. My favorites have always been the shortbread Trefoils.

But this year, I tried something new, the Cafe Cookie, and I think I have found a new favorite. The cookies are simple, plain cinnamon flavored cookies. They are a bit hard, but that, I suppose, is what makes them a cafe cookie - for dunking in coffee? I don't care. I love them.

What are your favorites?