The best chocolate wafers are the ones you make yourself

The baking community is buzzing about the discontinuation of a certain famous chocolate wafer cookie. The cookie has been, in corporate terms, “delisted,” and already a petition has been created, urging that the decision be reconsidered.

But what if I told you that the chocolate wafer cookies you so desire can be easily made at home? In fact, they’re even better when you make them yourself. The truth will set you free.

Photography and food styling by Liz Neily

Our recipe for Chocolate Wafers yields intensely chocolatey, deeply flavored and colored cookies and, unlike the storebought version, contain neither high fructose corn syrup nor artificial flavors.   

But they do contain a very special ingredient: black cocoa. Used to give baked goods the deepest, darkest color (more black than brown), black cocoa powder is ultra-Dutch processed, meaning it is treated with an alkaline solution to reduce its acidity. This gives it a smooth texture, inky color, and unsweetened chocolate highlights. For these cookies, it’s used in combination with our Double Dark Cocoa for a one-two punch of deep chocolate flavor.

And while these crisp cookies are great any time of the year, summer is their time to shine. That’s because they’re a key element in icebox cake, which is made by layering wafer cookies with whipped cream, then refrigerating until the cookies soften into a cake-like texture. You can go classic, with this Chocolate Icebox Cake, or try this Iced Coffee Icebox Cake, which, like the wafer cookies themselves, is fortified with a jolt of espresso powder. 

Photograph by Danielle Sykes; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne

And while icebox cakes might be the most well-known use for chocolate wafers, they’re also the perfect cookie to crumble and use for a pie crust, as in this creamy, fluffy No-Bake French Silk Pie. They’re a key component of our Cookies and Cream Cupcakes. (The cupcake batter also uses black cocoa.) 

Or use them to make a batch of Faux-Reos — even though the storebought equivalent of those sandwich cookies hasn’t been discontinued, you never know. And in any case, the homemade version is still better than anything you can buy.

Cover photo and food styling by Liz Neily.