Fortune cookies

I was feeling rather inspired by Chinese New Year and thought I would try my hand at making some fortune cookies.  They are by no means the easiest thing I’ve ever made and there is certainly a technique {which I have yet to master…} but if you persevere the output is really fun and rewarding.

I have long associated fortune cookies as being served at the end of a meal at a Chinese restaurant.  However, it turns out that fortune cookies don’t have Chinese origins at all, but in fact originate from Kyoto in Japan.  The story of how they became associated with China is a bit murky but essentially around the time of the world wars they made an appearance at Chinese restaurants in California, so I guess the rest is history {or something like that}.

One thing that can’t be disputed is how these little sweet treats always put a smile on your face.  So much better than an after dinner mint and the cute little sayings always leave you feeling somewhat philosophical or, more often, baffled…

Makes 12 {although don’t expect them all to work out right!}

Ingredients

100g plain flour

1 1/2 tbsp cornfour

50g caster sugar

1 tsp salt

3 tbsp vegetable oil

3 egg whites

1 tsp water

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp almond extract

Method

1. The first thing you will need is your fortunes – there are lots of free printables and ideas available on the internet, ranging from the thought provoking to the funny to the lovey and everything in between.  I chose a few random sayings which I typed up and printed out.  You want each saying to be no more than 1cm wide and 6cm long to fit neatly inside the cookie.
2. Preheat the oven to 170ºC and line a baking tray with a silicon mat.  {The silicon mat is really rather important.  You could probably try with greaseproof paper but these are the real deal…  They’re readily available on amazon and can be used to cook many things from cookies to vegetables to roasts so are a great investment.}
3. Sift the flour and cornflour into a bowl then add the sugar and salt and mix well.
4. Make a well in the middle and add all the remaining ingredients, using a wooden spoon to combine.  Don’t be tempted to use a whisk or mixer at this point as it will make your mix too light and fluffy which isn’t what is needed.
5. Place a tablespoon of the mixture onto the silicon mat and, using the back of a metal spoon, spread it until it is a circle of about 10cm diameter.  Repeat for as many as will fit on your baking sheet making sure you leave a couple of centimetres between the circles as they do tend to spread a little while baking.  The best thing is to only do a few at a time as this leaves you enough time to shape the cookies when they come out of the oven.
6. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes until the outside edge of the cookies have turned a golden brown.  Once cooked they should be easy to remove from the baking sheet using a spatula.
7. Now you need to work pretty quickly here and the advice is to be “gentle yet intentional” – good luck!  Place a fortune in the centre of the cookie and fold over so that you have semi-circle, pinching around the open edge if you can (this didn’t seem to work for me!)  Then place the folded edge over the side of a cup and slowly bring down the two corners one on the outside of the cup and the other on the inside, making the classic fortune cookie shape.  I found that this wasn’t necessarily very easy and that some of my cookies cracked.  It was trial and error for me but I found the best thing was to just go with it!  My cookies weren’t necessarily the traditional shape but nevermind…
8. As the cookies cool and set you can either place them into a cup or use a muffin tin to help keep their shape.
9. Repeat for as many batches as you have mixture.  It gets easier each time…I promise!

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My fortune cookies were very far from perfect but they were great fun to make and I will certainly be trying them out again.  I might make a bigger batch so that I get enough of a chance to improve as I use up the mix!  In any case it didn’t stop them being enjoyed by all those who had one and the taste was certainly better than the mass produced ones you get at restaurants.

Kung Hei Fat Choy