I am looking for a recipe to make oblaten. Oblaten are large, round, thin cookies, about 8 inches in diameter and about 1/4 inch thick. They are used to make an Eastern European dessert called a “Pishinger,” which consists of sandwiching chocolate buttercream or chocolate ganache between oblaten until you have a 2-inch high “cake,” and enclosing the whole thing in a chocolate glaze. You slice the pieces very thinly because they are as rich as a candy bar. I’ve always had to mail-order oblaten (or I have purchased them in Seattle at the Pike St. Marketplace when I was there on vacation).
But I don’t see why I couldn’t make them myself, if only I had a recipe. I suspect they are cooked in a waffle press or pizzelle iron.  Their texture is similar to communion wafers: thin, with a sugary-meringue-y snap to them. But, unlike communion wafers, they can withstand the the moisuture of buttercream. They are also similar to the kind of wafer cookie you find in a supermarket, the ones with waffled crosshatching on the surface, in colors of chocolate, vanilla, or pink, cut into long rectangles, and filled with matching cream.

I’ve been doing google searches for a few years now, looking for an oblaten recipe, and I have not been successful. If any of you can point me in the right direction, I would be so grateful!

Hi Christine,
I combined Oblaten with Rezept (the german word for recipe) in a google search. This turned up lots of german recipes. They all seem to use commercial Oblaten.

http://www.mamas-rezepte.de/index1.htm?rezepte2/gebaeck/oblatentorte.htm~unten

Is this the dessert you have in mind?

Hi,

I haven’t attempted to make these but I love wafers so your post piqued my interest so I did some searching too.
As you know, wafers are really old food so it was exciting to see recipes from the 1600’s out there!!!

Like this one:

The English Housewife Cookery and Recipes by G. Markham 1683
To make Wafers:To make the best Wafers, take the finest wheat-flowers you can get, and mix it with Cream, the yelks of Eggs, Rose-water, Sugar, and Cinamon, till it be a little thicker than Pancake-batter, and then warming your Wafter Irons on a charcoal-fire, anoint them first with sweet Butter, and than lay on your batter, and press it, and bake it white or brown at your pleasure.

hehe love it!

But you could try this site for background info there are some examples of the wafel/wafer irons - so beautiful!

http://www.historicfood.com/Wafer.htm

And one final thing a recipe from 1963 which may be similar to what you are after although the method is a bit scant!:

Vanilla Wafers

Cream together butter, shortening, and sugar till fluffy. Add vanilla and salt. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Stir in flour. Mix well. Drop from teaspoon onto greased cooky sheet. Flatten with a flat bottomed glass. Bake at 375 for 8 to 10 minutes or until delicately browned on edges. Remove immediately from pan. Makes 7 dozen.

( I guess you could try this with a greased pizzelle or wafel/wafer (not a waffle!) iron??)

Let us know how it goes!

Few pages down the google list is this…

http://www.kirchenweb.at/kochrezepte/13dessert/cg/karlsbader_torte.htm

Oh.. one more thing I thought of… maybe try making some French tuiles (the paste mixture ones not the crushed nut ones) as these have a similar flavour/texture to wafers and hold up well under buttercream etc

Apparently Oblaten are wafers. The original recipe is from Carlsbad in the Czech republic. The Czechs object to the Bavarian factories who use the Karlsbader terminology and sell oblaten to “original” recipes. I have to conclude that the Europeans haven’t made oblaten at home in centuries and the “original” recipes are in the hands of commercial manufacturers. The wafers are available from several sources online.

Here is a good close up of these wafers…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwfwIHuKEIs

This label is from…
http://www.oblaten.com

Thank you, everybody, for your replies. Gene, the picture in the first link is exactly the dessert I’ve made. I can see from the other links you sent that maybe I’ll just have to spend a lot of time with trial-and-error to see if I can get the right kind of cookie. Of course, Cate’s posting of that ancient recipe and the suggestion to use tuiles as the wafers might be the solution to the problem. Thanks, Cate!

Pleasure! I can’t wait to hear and see the results Christine! The torte looks so delicious!

i’m from germany and actually no one here makes oblaten himself, we buy them as they are tricky to make and do believe you’ll need special equipment.i’ve also looked up germandeli, they carry them and http://www.shop.kuechle.de has a wide variety , they are the most common brand here, they will ship internationally and also have an english website.
hth, sanni