Tuesday 7 February 2012

Valentine Fortune Cookies


Valentine Craft Number 4

   There have been felt fortune cookies almost everywhere I look. They don't really appeal to me, personally, unless there's chocolate in them. And I'm not sure how that would work :P Soo, after browsing the internet for a little while, I realised that I could make real ones instead!
   They're surprisingly easy, but the only fortune cookies I ever had came from a chinese place in the Cribbs Causeway Mall, and has long since disappeared. They were amazing, though. Though, I will mention one thing: if it's your first time trying this recipe, and you want a certain number of fortune cookies, you're better off perhaps increasing the recipe quantities by about 50% or so. Sometimes you might leave the cookies in the oven for a smidge too long, or not long enough, but you'll try to shape them anyway. I did :( Also, in the picture method below, I showed a bit of butter - thought I needed it, but I was wrong. So disregard the butter. Unless you calorie count. I can't tell you the nutritional value of this stuff, but Taralynn's fortune cookies give you all the details. Just click that link over thar and ctrl+F and search "fortune" - it's the easiest way to find it.


You Will Need (makes about 10):
• 1/2 cup of Flour
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 2 egg whites
• 1 tsp Food flavouring (typically almond, but these are your cookies!)
• 1/2 tsp Red food colouring, if even that much
• Grease-proof paper (I used washi tape)
• A pen


Method (Scroll down for picture-method):
1. Before you do anything else, write your fortunes. Well, no, you can pre-heat the oven if you want (400F/Gas Mark 6/200C), but before you start mixing anything up, make your papers. I used washi tape because it seems to have some sort of resistance to grease, but not a massive amount. I stick it down to grease-proof paper and wrote my message in a reliable pen on the tape. I could only come up with three things and they were cheesy, but I did them anyway.

2. Once you've done that, take your egg whites, stick them in a mixing bowl, and with an electric mixer, mix them at medium speed for however long it takes for them to become very frothy, and almost form soft peaks. Once you've done that, add in the flour, sifted, and mix a little more.

3. Now add the sugar, the flavouring, and the colouring. Continue to mix. Once it's nicely combined, run to the sink and walk back slowly with 2 tablespoons of water to thin the mixture. Don't try to get two tablespoons at once, that's just silly.

4. Mix it all together, and, as you can see from below, it should be niiiice and runny. Grab a non-greased baking tray and put one tablespoon of the mixture on one half of the tray, and use the back of the spoon to smooth it into a mice circle. The mixture won't increase in size by much, so however big you make the circle is about how big they'll come out. Do this for the other half of the tray. It might seem counter productive to just make two cookies per tray, that's what I thought, but it's very helpful.

5. Stick the mixture in the oven for about 4 minutes. You have enough time to make a cup of tea, but not drink it. That'll have to wait for the next two cookies.

You have a decision to make now: As you can see from my pictures, I have one cookie that is a lighter colour than the others. I found that the top of the cookie when they come out of the oven is stickier than the underside. So I tried it that way instead. It's the best formed cookie out of the entire lot, and the one that dried quickest and best...est. However, it's more pink than red. Basically, decide if you want red cookies or pink cookies. Pink cookies: once you remove the cookie from the tray in step 6, don't flip it over. If you want red ones, flip it, but it may not turn out quite as well, because the entire thing will be stickier for longer.

6. When that's done, pull them out and use a thin spatula to remove them from the tray. This is the tricky bit. Now, I don't usually get on well with biscuits, baking trays, or spatulas, but this all went smoothly for me, somehow. But it's still tricky. Once you remove the first cookie, and it will still definitely be soft, but it should hold its shape, put it down on a dry surface, place your fortune in the middle of the circle, then bring the two sides of the cookie together, the side above and below the fortune. Pinch them together so that they stick, then bend it in half with the aid of a cup. I'm so sorry I haven't got a picture of that but I know there are other, better places online to go than here for fortune cookies.
7. Once you've done that for the first cookie, do it for the second, then place them in a cupcake tray so they retain their shape while drying. Then, repeat step 4 by placing more mixture back onto the tray and putting it in the oven for 4 minutes. Do this until you run out of mixture. Now, once I was done, I put the cookie tray itself in the oven for five minutes to help the drying along. When they came out, they seemed wetter (except the pink one), but they did all dry and go hard about half an hour or so later.




   This was the tutorial I thought was going to go horribly wrong. While not going quite as smoothly as the others so far, I am greatly impressed with the outcome. I will try this again, but with nicer flavouring than almond (not to my taste) and I'll also not bother flipping them over before folding them. And perhaps make sure they're in the oven for 4 or 5 minutes before removing them. Aaaand maybe I won't put the cake tray in afterwards and just see how long they take to air-dry. Enjoy! Let me know how it goes! But do remember that every recipe is different. If this one doesn't work for you, try some others. There's a link to Taralynn's further up!



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