Mosaiko is a wonderful chocolate dessert from Greece. Think soft chocolate surrounding crunchy butter cookies. These no-bake treats are simple enough for children to make.

I’m back overseas again and this time my house had almost no cooking equipment when I arrived. Cambodian houses usually just have gas burners (think a nice Coleman stove) set on top of a counter and no oven. My landlord cooks with a rice cooker and a microwave so the gas burners weren’t functional when I moved in.

I bought a nice cooker which is Australian for “range” or “stove” and we installed it yesterday. In the meantime I needed some chocolate, but what to make when you have no stove or oven?

When we were in Greece a few weeks ago, we had this wonderful dessert called Mosaiko. Unlike other Greek desserts that drip honey, this one tasted like chocolate cookie dough with crunchy vanilla cookies throughout. And it was so nice and cool.

I looked up the recipe and it requires no cooking whatsoever. This may put some of you off because it contains 2 raw eggs. You can buy pasteurized eggs at Walmart. If you don’t have access to store bought pasteurized eggs, you can follow these directions to pasteurize them. Eggs are quite fresh here and I’ve not had problems so I didn’t bother but pasteurized eggs are always safer.

You only need 7 ingredients for this recipe. I bought some butter cookies at the store but these butter wafer cookies would work really well. You want a crunchy, plain vanilla cookie that’s not too thick. Basically, you make a thick batter, fold in the cookies and pour into a loaf pan lined with plastic wrap. Then freeze.

One important tip here is that eggs come in different sizes. The eggs here are pretty small by US standards (US medium) so you will probably need more cocoa and powdered sugar to make the “dough.” If you’re using extra large eggs, I’d use just one.  You may also need some additional butter cookies.

When I sliced my Mosaiko straight out of the freezer, it quickly softened up and was a lot more moist than what I had in Greece (you can see this in the photos). I put some slices on a tray in the refrigerator over night and they dried out a little. They were still moist but had more of the cookie dough texture we experienced in Greece.

I took this Mosaiko to a church potluck and the college students ate it right up. This recipe makes about 10 slices but you can easily double it for larger groups. I’m off to Myanmar tomorrow so it will be a week before I can use my new “cooker” but I promise you a fun dessert to break it in.

Yield: 10 slices

Mosaiko

Print

Prep Time 15 minutes

Additional Time 2 hours

Total Time 2 hours 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter, melted (250 g)
• 1 ⅔ cup powdered sugar (icing sugar) (200 g)
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 medium pasteurized eggs, separated
• 2 tablespoons Grand Marnier or orange juice (15 ml)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (5 ml)
• 4 ½ - 5 cups thin butter cookies broken into small pieces (about 300 g)

Instructions

1. Line a 9 inch loaf pan with plastic wrap (you need enough extra to fold over the top)
2. Beat egg yolks until very thick and light yellow. The egg yolks should form a ribbon when you pull the beaters out.
3. Add melted butter, cocoa powder, powdered sugar, Grand Marnier (or orange juice) and vanilla. Mix well.
4. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry.
5. Fold egg whites into egg yolk mixture.
6. Fold in butter cookies. The chocolate mixture should coat the butter cookies with not a lot of extra chocolate mixture. If necessary add more broken butter cookies.
7. Pour into lined loaf pan and spread evenly.
8. Fold the plastic wrap over the top of the dough to seal and place in the freezer for several hours until firm.
9. Slice and serve or put slices on serving platter and let dry out in the refrigerator overnight.
10. Keep refrigerated.

Notes

If you use large eggs, you will probably only need 1 egg. To get the more rounded shape, I pulled the plastic wrap tight before freezing and then adjusted the shape after freezing for one hour.