How to make cheat’s easy fortune cookies for Chinese New Year

As part of our Chinese New Year themed Weekend Box we reviewed, we made easy fortune cookies.  I always thought they’d be really complicated, and had no idea how they’re made, so I was pleased to see how we could make them the easy way.  Ok, so they might not be traditional, but for something easy that children could make, these are worth a try.

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We decided to decorate ours as well, because why not. Plus if you’re cooking with toddlers or young children, making food with sprinkles is always going to encourage them to try eating new foods.

We used wholewheat tortillas as that’s what we had in, but I think they’d probably be nicer with the wheat version. They’re also more pliable than wholewheat which can be a bit brittle.

Ingredients:

• Flour tortillas (we used wholewheat)
• Olive oil
• Toppings (optional) – melted chocolate, sprinkles, freeze dried fruit (chopped), sesame seeds

How to make cheat’s easy fortune cookies

1, Write your messages or sayings on thin strips of paper, cut out and fold.

2, Take a tortilla and a round scone or biscuit cutter and cut out circles from the tortilla.  I’d recommend a larger sized cutter so there’s room for folding and putting the paper inside.

3, Lay a paper message on the inside of the circle, brush some olive oil around one semi-circle edge of the tortilla, then fold over the other half of the tortilla to close.  Press down the edge to help it hold. (We did struggle a bit with keeping them closed, so I guess you could try something like milk or beaten egg instead).

4, Fold the points gently inwards towards each other to make the ‘horseshoe’ fortune cookie shape. Continue to make as many as you want.  Lay each fortune cookie in a muffin tin hole.

5, Bake for up to 5 minutes at 150C , remove from the oven and leave to cool. Just keep an eye on them and don’t let them burn like some of mine did!

6, If decorating, dip in melted chocolate and sprinkle over chopped freeze dried fruit or sprinkles, or brush on olive oil and sprinkle over sesame seeds.

I’m not really a fan of the taste of proper fortune cookies (it’s more about the message inside).  With these, everyone likes wraps, so you know they’ll get eaten. The sprinkles add a bit more flavour, plus they look really pretty sitting in a dish or on a plate as part of  Chinese New Year decorations or feast.

If you want to make them more authentically, you could try the BBC Good Food recipe.

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