Monday, December 15, 2008

Fortune Cookie Say: You will make sugar cookies next time.


With our budget tight and time running out, I was practically at a loss for teachers' gifts this year (Isaiah has 6 school-related personnel alone). We drove down to Michael's over the weekend with the intention to buy baskets and fill them with the standard cookie fare. But then, these festive holiday Chinese takeout boxes caught my eye and I knew I had to have them.

Later that night, some particularly bad macaroni salad from the Wal-Mart deli allowed me some alone time to web surf for Christmas cookie recipes. Imagine my delight when I came across homemade, ginormous fortune cookies! Ding! Ding! Ding! That was it! I would write cutesy fortunes for a happy holiday to the teachers and place them in gigantic cookies that would fit just right in the festive takeout boxes! Too good to be true?

First of all the recipe called for "anise seed" which they apparently don't sell at the commissary. James called me from there and had 3 ladies helping him in the search. They didn't turn up fennel either. So I told him to grab some almond extract and call it a day.

The second issue was the size of the cookie itself: 8 inches in diameter. Which meant: A) one batch made only 1 cookie and B) I could only bake 1 cookie at a time. I began baking this morning after the girls' 2-hour delay. Isaiah and I had to brave the cold for a silicon pan liner when cookie #2 decided it liked the cookie sheet better than the cooling rack. After settling back in and completing cookies #2-#4, it was time to get the girls from school. Oh and who needs a snack? And look who's home--Daddy! Oops! Did I forget to cook dinner?

It was a ton of work and a truckload of patience, but I was really pleased with how they turned out. The irony of it all--we had to actually eat takeout for dinner.

Giant Fortune Cookies:
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Baking Time: 7 minutes
Total Time: 7 hours

5 comments:

Jamie said...

But they're so cute! We're making cookies this weekend, but we'll be sticking to the sugar cookies!

Maria said...

great looking fortune cookie!

Wendy M. said...

too cute! Sorry it turned out to be such a pain! They look amazing though!

Jenny B said...

Very cool. I love how the theme came together!

Mommyof2boys said...

How creative !! They turned out sooo cute ! Great job Sharon !

I love those chinese take out boxes...we found some great pirate ones there and used them for Ashton's 4th birthday...putting gold coins and pirate rings inside,too neat !