Predictably, reading break hit and my consistency grew wings. But better late than never. This recipe was my redemption, in fact. Let me set the scene: I’m 15 years old and our family friends are having a Chinese food night. I want to make fortune cookies so bad. It was going to be awesome. Spoiler for the ending it was NOT awesome. I had my mom buy me almond extract and everything, I made the batter, but we were running late and I was rushing and there was FAR too much almond in that batter and they crashed and burned.

Good news! I have redeemed myself.

The Process

We prepare the batter, then prepare the fortunes, in no particular order. I cut up little slips of paper and had my fellow dorm dwellers make fortunes for me to put in the cookies. You can imagine the kind of fortunes produced by university students, but some of them were cute. My favourite was just “Andrew” because Andrew’s confusion amused me greatly. The cookies a few at a time. You then take them out of the oven, put the fortune inside, fold in half, and fold in half again. The trick is to put them in muffin tins so they do not unfold while cooling.

My folding skills were kind of sad, but thats okay! University students will not complain when you feed them.

The Recipe

https://www.thespruceeats.com/fortune-cookie-recipe-694545

I used a fortune cookie recipe written by Rhonda Parkinson off The Spruce Eats website.

Ingredients

• 2 large egg whites
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 teaspoons water

Instructions:

1. Gather the ingredients
2. Write fortunes on small slips of paper
3. Preheat oven to 300 F and grease your baking sheets
4. In a medium bowl, lightly beat the egg white, vanilla extract, almond extract, and vegetable oil until frothy, but not stiff.
5. Sift the flour, cornstarch, salt, and sugar in a separate bowl. Stir the water into the flour mixture
6. Add the flour to the egg white mixture and stir until you have a smooth batter. The batter should not be runny but should drop easily off a wooden spoon.

1. Place level tablespoons of batter onto the cookie sheet, spacing them at least 3 inches apart. Gently tilt the baking sheet back and forth and from side to side so that each tablespoon of batter forms into a circle 4 inches in diameter
2. Bake until the outer 1/2-inch of each cookie turns golden brown, and they are easy to remove from the baking sheet with a spatula (14 to 15 minutes).
3. Working quickly, remove the cookie with a spatula and flip it over in your hand. Place the fortune in the middle, then fold in half two times and place in a muffin tin

The Final Product

It worked!!! I’m so proud of these. They were a little misshapen and some were a touch underbaked, but I’m certain if I made them again I’d have a better handle on it. This could be such a fun project to with students. I think it could connect to social emotional learning and language arts, having students write kind messages to their peers. Students could participate in the baking aspect if the school has the resources, but teacher could also take the fortunes home and do it for them there. Another idea I had was having older elementary students write math word problems on the slips of paper, taking them home and turning them into fortune cookies, and then bringing them back and distributing the cookies for students to solve the math problems. The students would surely eat that up, pun intended.

My dormmates were massive fans of the cookies. I even had some people being surprised that one could make fortune cookies from scratch at all.

Minor misfortune: I tried to save a few cookies for people who were not able to grab one the day I baked them. I did this by putting them in a Ziplock bag. The only way I can describe their shockingly unpleasant texture would be cookie beef jerky. It was an experience for my mouth and not one I want to repeat. As such, I advise eating them day of or storing in a paper bag instead.

In conclusion, I would make these again and 15 year old me feels redeemed.