What Are Chocolate wafer crumbs and How Can I Use Them?

Wondering what to do with chocolate wafer crumbs? This guide covers how to pick them, cook them, store them, and swap them, plus 74 recipes to put them to work.

Key Points

Chocolate wafer cookies ground fine; the dark, bittersweet cousin of graham cracker crumbs.
Made almost entirely for crumb crusts under chocolate cheesecakes and cream pies.
A working ratio is one and a half cups crumbs to a quarter cup melted butter per 9-inch pan.
A crumbly crust means too little butter or coarse crumbs; grind fine and clump-test before pressing.
Crush your own wafers for the closest match; freeze extra crumbs to use straight from the bag.

What are chocolate wafer crumbs?

Chocolate wafer crumbs are simply chocolate wafer cookies ground to a fine, sandy texture. They are the dark, slightly bitter cousin of graham cracker crumbs, and they exist for one main job: a quick chocolate crumb crust.

You can buy them pre-crushed in a bag, or make your own by pulsing the cookies in a food processor. Either way the crumb is dry and cocoa-deep, not very sweet, which is exactly what a rich filling wants underneath it.

For the cookie itself and how it bakes, see chocolate wafer cookies.

How to Use Chocolate Wafer Crumbs

The crumbs go almost entirely into crusts. Stir them with melted butter, press the mix into a pie plate or springform pan, and you have the base for a chocolate cheesecake or cream pie.

Homemade Oreo Cheesecake and Chocolate Marble Cheesecake Pie both start from this crumb crust.

A working ratio is about one and a half cups of crumbs to a quarter cup of melted butter for a 9-inch pan. Press firmly and evenly.

Then either bake the crust for 8 to 10 minutes or chill it until set, depending on whether the filling is baked or no-bake.

Crumbs also bind no-bake confections. Amaretto Balls roll a boozy chocolate dough that the crumbs hold together, and they dust the outside of truffles and rum balls for a dark, cocoa finish.

Pairing and Common Mistakes

The dark crumb plays against cream cheese, coffee, mint, caramel, peanut butter, and cherry. Its faint bitterness keeps a sweet filling from going flat.

The most common mistake is a crust that crumbles when you slice it. That usually means too little butter or crumbs ground too coarse. Grind to a fine, even sand and add butter until the mix clumps when you squeeze a handful.

The other slip is uneven pressing. A thick rim and a thin center bakes unevenly and cracks. Press the crumbs flat across the bottom and partway up the sides with the back of a measuring cup.

Substitutes

The closest swap is to crush whole chocolate wafer cookies yourself, which is the same thing made fresh.

Scraped-out Oreo cookies, ground fine, also work, though their filling adds sweetness, so cut the sugar elsewhere. Chocolate graham cracker crumbs make a softer, sweeter crust.

Plain graham or vanilla wafer crumbs will hold a crust too, but you lose the dark cocoa color and the bittersweet edge that defines this crumb.

Buying and Storing

Pre-bagged chocolate cookie crumbs live near the graham crumbs and pie supplies in the baking aisle. Since the classic Nabisco wafers were discontinued, many cooks grind store-brand chocolate cookies to make their own.

Store crumbs in an airtight container or sealed bag at room temperature, where they keep for months while sealed. They take on moisture quickly once opened, so squeeze the air out and close them tight.

Crumbs freeze well, so grind extra and stash a bag. Frozen crumbs go straight into a crust with no thawing.

Nutrition

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 1 cup, crumbs (112g)

Amount per Serving

Calories 484Calories from Fat 143

% Daily Value *

Total Fat 15.9g 24%

Saturated Fat 4.7g 24%

Trans Fat ~

Cholesterol 2mg 1%

Sodium 649mg 27%

Total Carbohydrate 81.1g 27%

Dietary Fiber 4g 15%

Sugars 33.2

Protein 7.4g

Vitamin A 0% Vitamin C 0%

Calcium 3% • Iron 25%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your caloric needs.

recipeland.com/nutrition

Quick facts

Food group: Chocolate wafer crumbs are a member of the Baked Products US Department of Agriculture nutritional food group.

In Chinese: 巧克力片屑
British (UK) term: Chocolate wafer crumbs
en français: miettes de plaquettes de chocolat
en español: migas de obleas de chocolate

How much do chocolate wafer crumbs weigh?

Amount	Weight
1 cup, crumbs	112 grams
1 ounce	28 grams
1 wafer	6 grams

Baked Products

Biscuit baking mix (bisquick) 416 Cornbread 49 Bread, french baguette 56 French bread 203 Bread, italian 56 Crusty bread 16 Pita bread 88 Rye bread 48 Bread 571 Bread, white 169

Recipes using chocolate wafer crumbs

There are 74 recipes that contain this ingredient.

Graveyard Treat

Beneath a layer of ghostly whipped topping lies a chilling graveyard of cookie-crumb earth, with layers of creamy, eerie cheese filling and a tombstone of cookies marking the final resting place of your diet. Serve this spine-chilling dessert at your Halloween party, if you dare, and watch as your guests unearth the delicious secrets hidden within!

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