Valentine Cookie Stacks

For those of you who are not so lucky as to have previously had cookie stacks play a role in your Valentine's Day celebrations, allow me to introduce you. Valentine Cookie Stacks are crispy chocolate wafer cookies layered with whipped cream and topped with a cherry. Pop 'em in the fridge and after a few hours the cookies get soft and cake-like and delicious. (Chopped pecans are optional. Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't. I always do. But that's just me.)


Every Valentine's Day, my mom would whip up a batch of these, furtively place a tray of them on the front door step, ring the bell, and quickly run back inside to be standing innocently in the kitchen when all of us kids emerged from the back of the house, racing each other to the front door. Every year we were determined to catch the cookie-leaving culprit. Every year we failed. It never even occurred to us that the reason we never saw any trace of the co-conspirator was because there was none. Mom worked alone.

Last year, before the Hubs was the Hubs, we spent Valentine's Day apart. I was in DC, he was in Sydney. In true "I have a crush on you" fashion, I sent J-dub a package filled with all sorts of Valentine cuteness, including a box of chocolate wafer cookies and a jar of maraschino cherries. I told him that when I came to visit the following month I would show him what they were for. But, alas. The boy ate every last one of those chocolate wafers long before I even arrived. And the cherries, he put in the fridge where they have been ever since.

So. This year was the year for the cookie stacks to make their debut.

But, wait...Nabisco chocolate wafers aren't available in Australia. (No big surprise there. Just add it to the list of things I can't get over here.) And since I've been learning to make so many things from scratch lately, for the first time ever it occurred to me that I might be able to make homemade chocolate wafers. Could it be?

According to Smitten Kitchen, it could be. So, I tied my apron strings tight and got to it. And behold...homemade chocolate wafers!


Okay, so maybe they're not as thin as the folks at Nabisco make 'em. And not as uniformly shaped. Gimme a break, it was my first attempt! And anyway, they're just as crispy, and just as tasty. I may never go back to the store-bought variety. And the misshapen-ness is actually kind of fun, if you ask me. That's the dead giveaway that they're the real deal.

Aaaaand...you can make some pretty phenomenal ice cream sandwiches with the remaining cookies. We only had vanilla ice cream on hand, but I'm already dreaming of trying them with mint chocolate chip and peppermint next go 'round.