Israelis Are Obsessed With This Easy No-Bake Dessert

Chocolate salami is a no‑bake dessert made of chocolate, butter, crushed tea biscuits and nuts, rolled into a log and sliced to resemble salami. It’s rich yet simple, and loved across Europe and beyond.

The dessert likely originated in Italy or Portugal in the 17th–18th centuries, when home cooks used humble pantry staples like cocoa, biscuits, butter and a splash of rum or brandy. During this same period, Sephardi Jewish trade networks played a vital role in bringing chocolate to Europe. After the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal during the Inquisition, many settled in the New World, where cacao was grown, while others dispersed across Europe or converted to Catholicism and remained in Iberia. This network of Jewish and converso traders helped transport cacao from the Americas to European markets, laying the groundwork for chocolate’s spread and popularity.

While most modern recipes use real chocolate, some versions, particularly those from Turkey and Greece (where it is known as Mozaik Pasta or mosaiko, for the mosaic look of the crushed cookies), are still made with cocoa powder, as the earliest recipes were. That simple, cocoa‑based style is closest to the one I grew up eating in Israel. My mother made an unforgettable version: A rich mixture of cocoa, margarine and crushed biscuits wrapped around a “marzipan” filling of shredded coconut mixed with sugar and almond extract. It was a humble confection, popular in Israel in the 1970s before the country’s cuisine became more varied and sophisticated.

That same mixture of cocoa, margarine and biscuits is also the base for the beloved Israeli kids’ treat known as “kadorei shokolad” (chocolate balls), a recipe still popular today. I have to admit, despite the many decadent versions of chocolate salami out there, this simple cocoa‑based one remains my favorite, because it carries the flavors of my childhood.

Chocolate salami is easy to adapt. Add nuts or chopped dried fruit and it becomes a perfect Tu Bishvat dessert. Use vegan substitutes to make it pareve, or swap in kosher‑for‑Passover biscuits to serve it at the seder. A splash of brandy or rum adds depth, but even the simplest version — cocoa, biscuits and butter — can be something extraordinary and all that one needs in the hot days of summer.

The following recipe includes two versions — one bittersweet, strong chocolate flavor, and one for the more childish palate (like mine) with milk chocolate. Both are delicious.

Notes: 

• The bittersweet chocolate salami can very easily be adapted to be pareve or kosher for Passover (or both). Use vegan dark chocolate instead of a dairy one, use vegan butter and your favorite nut milk (or even water instead of the milk). For Passover, use kosher for Passover cookies.
• Keep salami wrapped in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

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