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| Chocolate wafer cookies |
Vegan Chocolate Wafer Cookies
¾ cup whole-wheat pastry flour
6 Tbsp cocoa or carob powder
½ cup sugar or sweetener
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp instant coffee or caffeine-free coffee substitute
¼ cup oil
¼ cup warm water
1 tsp vanilla
Mix together all dry ingredients. Stir together wet
ingredients, and then pour over dry ingredients. Combine until homogenous,
trying not to overmix.
Form into 1 or more logs of 1 to 1 ½ inches in diameter.
Wrap with wax paper or plastic wrap and freeze for about 2 hours.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment or silpat. Unwrap each log
and slice into ¼ inch discs. Arrange cookies on cookie sheets. Press and shape
each cookie with your fingers a little to help it hold together.
Bake for about 11 minutes, rotating pans halfway through.
Let cool completely before assembling into icebox cake or other dessert.
Vegan Chocolate Hazelnut Icebox Cake
And here’s one of those retro desserts I was talking about.
An icebox cake is a dessert made of cookies (usually store-bought) layered with
either whipped cream or pudding and then chilled overnight. When it is sliced
the next day it resembles a layer cake in miniature. Icebox cakes come in many
shapes and flavors, most of them not vegan, but some with promise for modification : ).
Here I’ve used a tofu-hazelnut mousse in place of the
whipped cream and these homemade wafer cookies in place of storebought ones.
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| Chocolate Hazelnut Icebox Cake |
Vegan Icebox Cake
Vegan Hazelnut Mousse (whipped topping substitute):
1 12 oz pkg firm silken tofu
½ cup chopped toasted hazelnuts
1/3 cup sugar or sweetener
1 tsp vanilla
1-2 Tbsp soymilk (optional)
dash of cinnamon
One recipe Vegan Chocolate Wafer cookies (above), cooked and
cooled completely
Directions:
For Hazelnut Mousse: Puree all mousse ingredients in a blender or food processor
until completely smooth, adding the soymilk if necessary to help out the
blender.
To assemble:
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| Spreading the lined pan with mousse |
Line one large loaf pan or 4
mini loaf pans with plastic wrap. Smear the bottom of the lined pan with a thin
layer of the hazelnut mousse.
Take one cookie and smear it with mousse. Press it against
one inner edge of the plastic-lined loaf pan. Take another cookie, smear it
with mousse, and press it against the first cookie.
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| Arranging the cookies in layers |
Keep smearing cookies and pressing them against each other
until the row reaches the other side of the pan. Make sure the last cookie in
the row is smeared on both sides.
If you’re using the large
loaf pan, start another row and keep going until you fill up the entire pan. If
you are using the small loaf pans you will probably only need the one row per
pan.
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| Covered and chilled |
Smear more hazelnut mousse over the top and into the corners
and edges.
Cover the top of the pan
with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge overnight.
The next day, peel back the plastic wrap, and then slice and serve.
Variations
If you don’t want to use wafer cookies, you can use thicker
cookies (such as chocolate chip) as long as you briefly dunk each one in soy
milk before you put the cake together.
Icebox cakes can be made in different shapes. You could try
a round one, or a tall tower.
The sugar-free version of this icebox cake (with both the
wafer cookies and the hazelnut mousse made with stevia or splenda in place of
sugar) was one the best-received sugar free desserts I have made. It’s
definitely worth a try.
If you have access to a commercial version of vegan whipped topping, you could certainly use that in place of the hazelnut mousse.
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| Icebox cake made with store-bought vegan whipped topping |
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