Fortune Cookie Recipe

These are great for just about any occasion.
You can make the fortunes, uh, fortuney, or subversive, or sweet, or informative, or random. You can use movie quotes, or poem excerpts, shared memories, whatever. I made some for a Friday the 13th party which happened around valentine's day, so it was a weird mashup of fortunes predicting horrible endings and nice valentine's sentiments.

This recipe only makes about a dozen. It's easy to whip up, so you can make more after you run out of batter. I haven't tried to double it, but it's worth a try.

You need nimble fingers and:

butter/shortening/parchment paper
5 tbsp butter, melted
4 large egg whites
1 cup sugar
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
3 tbsp heavy cream
1 tsp almond extract
a bunch of clever fortunes written on 1/4 inch wide paper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Grease a baking sheet with the butter or shortening, or use parchment paper.

Combine egg whites and sugar, beat on medium speed for about half a minute. Add the flour about half at a time while mixing into smooth batter. Add melted butter, heavy cream, and almond extract. Beat until smooth and well mixed.

Spoon 1 tbsp batter onto the baking sheet, spread into a 5 inch circle. You can probably fit 2-3 cookies on one sheet.

Bake until golden, about 6-8 minutes. Get your nimble fingers ready.

Slide a spatula under first cookie, or peel off of parchment paper. Place fortune in the middle, and loosely fold cookie in half. Insert index fingers into the ends near the fold and gently bend ends together.

If you don't do the folding QUICKLY, you'll have to just eat the cookie and consider it practice. Bummer.

Repeat the baking and folding until you realize that you do need to make another batch or two, then start from the beginning.

It's fun to do this with another person, and you also have more hands to shape the cookies before they cool. However, if your co-cookie conspirator is like mine, you may end up with some cookies that look like taquitos. Tasty mistakes.