As part of my holiday baking this year, I decided to make a pie with a chocolate wafer crumb crust. The kind where you crush the wafers, add melted butter and press them into the pie plate. The pie was a Grasshopper Cream Cheese Pie and I was really excited to make it.
I went to the market and filled my basket with all the ingredients I would need and headed to the cookie aisle. Guess what. No Nabisco Chocolate Wafers. Of course not. I hadn’t bothered to check if they even make them anymore. I just rolled my eyes, let out a big sigh and said to myself, oh rats.
But, not to be deterred (I really was determined to make this pie), I looked in my file and, thank goodness, found an old recipe for chocolate wafers. Ugh, it would have been so much easier to buy a box of them. But I persevered. The results were truly worth it, I must say.
These chocolate wafers are a refrigerator cookie, which is nice because you can make the dough, roll and wrap it up, and bake the cookies the next day at your leisure. They are cut really thin, and the recipe makes so many wafers, I was wondering what I was going to do with them all. I shouldn’t have worried, as I have this in-house taste tester who can make short work out of anything cookie related.
After I made the pie crust, I managed to experiment with little ice cream sandwiches. Actually, three ice cream sandwiches to be exact. If you count the cookies in the top and bottom photos, you will see there are exactly 7 cookies in each one. That is the amount I was able to protect to shoot. It wasn’t easy.
Chocolate Wafer Cookies
Makes about 90 wafers
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup cocoa powder
1 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
14 tablespoons (1 ¾ sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 tablespoons whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1. Combine dry ingredients in food processor.
2. Cut butter in 10 slices, add to processor and whiz couple times.
3. Mix milk and vanilla in a small bowl. With processor running, add milk through feed tube until dough clumps around blade or sides of bowl.
4. Transfer dough to board and knead a few times to evenly blend.
5. Form dough into log 14 inches by 1 ¾ inches. Wrap in plastic and foil. Chill at least one hour or more until firm.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment.
7. Cut dough log into slices a scant ¼-inch thick. Place 1 inch apart on sheet.
8. Bake 11 to 14 minutes. Cool on parchment on rack. They will crisp as they cool.
9. If not yet crisp, return to oven for 2-3 more minutes, then cool.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
They do still make the Nabisco Chocolate Wafers, but they’re never on the cookie aisle. I’ve been stumbling across them on randomly placed racks Through out the grocery, sometimes with ice cream toppings. The price also seems to have gone up, at least where we are.
I will definitely have to try your version.
I admire you for making these!
I had trouble finding the Nabisco wafers, but finally found them with the baking goods.
Even then they were not where you might expect them, but did find them, I think on the top shelf across from maybe the flour.
What perfectly beautiful and perfectly made cookies. Brava. It’s December. Let the baking begin!
The last time I looked for those wafers I found them, but they were so expensive I put them back! These look perfect! 🙂
If you ever tire of being an esteemed chef, you could become a cookie architect, judging by the architectural grandeur of that top photo.
Are these wafers crisp? Not hard like an Oreo cookie? I am looking
for a wafer to use in baking a copy cat Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie.
I noticed they are lighter in color like these. Also, Thin Mints are a more
crisp almost butter like cookie? Could this be the recipe I am looking for?
Hi Nancy ~ I am not familiar with the Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookie, but these wafers are crisp, not hard like an Oreo. You can try them, and if they aren’t quite right, you can just eat them out of hand. I hope they work out for you. Happy Holidays! Lynne xo
There’s no egg in this recipe?
Hi Greg ~ Sorry, there is no egg in this recipe. No egg. Nada. However, they are very chocolatey and crunchy. How are you planning to use them? Happy New year! Lynne xo