For my birthday last week, my precious sister gave me a copy of The Pie and Pastry Bible.  The book fell open to Black Forest Chiffon Pie. This is an omen, thought I.  For the crust I needed the chocolate wafers.  Five grocery stores later, I was empty handed.  Hannibal, Missouri does not have them nor have they any other plain chocolate cookies.  Do you have a cookie recipe I can use to substitute for the Nabisco chocolate wafers?

You can use Oreos with the filling scraped out… heck, you can even leave the filling in - just grind them in your food processor.  Chocolate graham crackers also come to mind.

JULIENNE:
  Good morning. Welcome to our culinary club & happy to meet you as well. Member Patrincia stated a sound suggestion to you.
You can consider asking Google for recipes as well.

http://www.google.com

  Type in chocolate cookie recipes.
When you chose the recipe you like & after baking them & cooled… crumble them up by hand somewhat & then place them in your food proc. or blender to make crumbs out of those cookies. If you require additional assistance as to the proper amounts of the total ingredients, so forth & so on come back & we here can & will help you.
  Good luck in your cake project & enjoy the rest of the day young lady.

~FRESHKID.

I agree, these are hard to find, but I’ve seen them at a couple of stores locally.  You can also order them online.

I’ve made crumb crusts with the Famous Wafers for years, they are still available in NJ.  In grocery stores here, they are sometimes placed where the ice cream toppings are, the sprinkles, maraschino cherries, cones, etc, at the end of the ice cream aisle. But - I rarely use the Famous Wafers these days for crusts. Oreo cookies are much better. This recipe is from Cooks Illustrated, May/June 2001. Simple and delicious.

For a 9 inch pie

16 Oreo cookies, with filling, broken into rough pieces, about 2 1/2 cups
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 350 degrees. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade, process cookies with 15 one second pulses, then let the machine run until crumbs are uniformly fine, about 15 seconds.  Alternatively, place cookies in a large ziptop bag and crush with a rolling pin. Transfer crumbs to a medium bowl, drizzle with butter and use fingers or a fork to combine until butter is evenly distributed.

Pour crumbs into a 9 inch pie plate. Press crumbs evenly onto bottom and up sides of pie plate. To make this easy, cover crumbs with plastic wrap and press with the back of a spoon to press into place.  Refrigerate for 20 minutes to firm crumbs, then bake until crumbs are fragrant and set, about 10 minutes. Cool on rack before filling.

I’ve used the Cook’s Illustrated Oreo cookie recipe and it does work nicely.

There are also recipes for Chocolate Wafer Cookies out there. You can even make your own Oreo-style cookies—King Arthur Flour has a recipe.

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/RecipeDisplay?RID=1178644550112

This question has been on my mind, too. I had a box of Famous wafers that I don’t even remember buying, but they tasted okay in the pie I baked earlier this winter.

That success inspired me to try another pie that needed a chocolate cookie crust, but by then I was out of the Famous Wafers, so I used the Oreo type crust, but not the Cook’s Illustrated recipe listed above, I just used a recipe I found on the internet.

Anyhow, my experience with the internet Oreo crust is that it baked up VERY firm and was almost impossible to cut.  I don’t know if that was my fault or not, but it’s the first time I’ve ever done it.  Definitely won’t recommend THAT recipe, though.

Next time I’ll try this Cook’s Illustrated recipe instead. (Thanks for sharing, this is very timely!)

Another thought entirely, is that in one of Rose’s other books, Rose’s Celebrations, she makes Bourbon Balls, and for that application she suggests that you can either use a box of Famous Wafers, or use the recipe for the Chocolate Oriolos on page 161.

I don’t have any idea how well those might work if you subbed the Oriolos in a cookie crust, but I think it might be worth an experiment or two. (I’d probably use some of that really black cocoa in them as well, just for the intensity of color)

Bungalow Barbara - 14 February 2009 11:42 PM

There are also recipes for Chocolate Wafer Cookies out there. You can even make your own Oreo-style cookies—King Arthur Flour has a recipe.

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/RecipeDisplay?RID=1178644550112

As an FYI: I tried another KAF recipe using an Oreo-type filling very similar to this one and it wasn’t good.  Overwhelmingly greasy with that awful Crisco taste and texture.

Just an update: I emailed Rose, wondering how the Oriolos might work in a pie crust recipe, and she advises that since the Oriolos are high in butter, you’d need to add less for a crust application. She’s never actually tried using them in a pie crust, however.

I’m thinking I might try some of the King Arthur Double Dutch cocoa for these, don’t you think?

My favorite general-interest food blogger has a wonderful recipe for making faux-Nabisco Chocolate Wafers.  I’ve tried it and they are utterly wonderful.  See it here:

http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/03/homemade-chocolate-wafers-icebox-cupcakes/

For really dark famous chocolate wafer style cookies, I use black cocoa I got from KA.  I mix about 20% of the black to regular undutched cocoa dependiong on the recipe (experiment).  It makes a cookie which is drier and having a lot of butter in the recipe tones it down.  I use the KA recipe for Faux Reos chocolate cookies or the chocolate wafer cookies.

It’s possible, too, that if you try a cookie recipe and they come out too moist, break them up and dry them out in the ove—a la biscotte—for several hours at a low temperature.

cook.bot - 10 May 2010 11:16 AM

My favorite general-interest food blogger has a wonderful recipe for making faux-Nabisco Chocolate Wafers.  I’ve tried it and they are utterly wonderful.  See it here:

http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/03/homemade-chocolate-wafers-icebox-cupcakes/

I made these the other day to serve as the cookie crumb crust for a cheesecake and people loved it.