Make Your Own Gourmet Fortune Cookies

Great Grad Gifts: Giant Fortune Cookies

2005-05-04T09:58:00.000-07:00

Well, May is upon us! May flowers, May Fests, Cinco de Mayo and...

High School and College Graduations!

If you're like most of us, you have a stack of graduation announcements sitting on your desk and you have no clue as to how to acknowledge these accomplishments. Help is here! Think Fortune Cookies!

Giant fortune cookies decorated with chocolate and stuffed with a note of congratulations and a gift card will be much appreciated by any graduate. Here are some ideas for cookie stuffers:

A gift card for ipod's itunes downloads
A Visa gift card that can be used anywhere Visa is accepted
A pre-paid convenience store gas card for the trip home to get laundry done
A Starbuck's gift card for those late-night cramming sessions
Gift cards for popular apparel stores like Abercrombie or Urban Outfitters
Target gift cards can be used to help brighten up that dreary dorm room

One trip out to buy the gift cards and a couple of hours in the kitchen, and voila, your graduation gift-giving dilemma is solved.

A free fortune cookie recipe can be found at the Gourmet Fortune Cookie website.

Funny Fortunes

2005-04-11T13:10:00.000-07:00

The great big fortune cookies featured at Gourmet Fortune Cookies are fun and whimsical. Apparently, most of our customers have a good sense of humor, too. We have received many requests for silly and funny fortunes, so we have started compiling a list of funny fortunes. Your entries are welcome and can be sent to us through our Contact Us Page at the Ultimate Gourmet Fortune Cookie website. A free fortune cookie recipe can be requested from Gourmet Fortune Cookies.

Ask forgiveness today. Tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty.
The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination; but the combination is locked up in the safe.
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
Speed is a good substitute for accuracy.
One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least somebody's listening.
Murphy's Seventh Law: Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
No problem is so large that it cannot be fit in somewhere.
Stand up to be seen, speak up to be heard, shut up to be appreciated.
There is no time like the pleasant.
Life would be so much easier if we could just view the source code.
It is often easier to get forgiveness rather than permission.
This fortune is inoperative. Please try another.
A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.
Don't marry for money. You can borrow it cheaper.
I doubt, therefor I might be.
Don't let your mind wander. It's too little to be let out alone.

For the more "adventuresome":

All traditional fortunes are funnier if you simply add the words, "in bed" to the end of the fortune. For a good laugh (or maybe just a small chuckle), try it with the following typical fortunes:

Family relations will improve with time (in bed).
A good evening is one spent in good company (in bed).
Your path is difficult, but you will be amply rewarded (in bed).
The beginning of wisdom is to desire it (in bed).
You are about to make a most valuable discovery (in bed).

More funny fortunes can be found on The Fortune Teller page of The Ultimate Gourmet Fortune Cookie Website

Gourmet Fortune Cookie Recipe

2005-03-23T10:42:00.000-08:00

There are about a jillion fortune cookie recipes floating around on the internet. And, always on the lookout for new ideas, we have tested most of them. (We eliminated a good few that, judging from the recipe, we knew would be dismal failures.) Unfortunately, we had to classify most of these recipes as "duds". In an effort to respond to the demand for a free fortune cookie recipe, The Ultimate Gourmet Fortune Cookie Website is offering a complementary basic fortune cookie recipe. This recipe can ge adapted to make big fortune cookies or the standard size...use your imagination. Just follow the link to our website's recipe request page and ask to be sent a free fortune cookie recipe from the Ultimate Gourmet Fortune Cookie Cookbook.
Enjoy!

Thanks for visiting the Ultimate Gourmet Fortune Cookie weblog.

Fortune Cookies in America

2005-03-21T19:38:00.000-08:00

It is thought that fortune cookies gained popularity as a sweet ending to a Chinese meal when Chinese restaurant owners decided to include them in order to attract Americans who had come to expect dessert after dinner. The history of the contemporary fortune cookie’s American origin is a hotly debated topic, with several people laying claim to its invention. Recipes and techniques are closely-guarded secrets and it would take an espionage agent to crack the cookie baking information vault. Several men lay claim to introducing the typical Chinese fortune cookie to America. Some food historians say that these cookies were first introduced in San Francisco by Makota Hagiwara in his Japanese Tea Garden. Hagiwara introduced the cookies to the general public at the 1915 San Francisco World Fair. Other experts contend that in 1918 David Jung, a Chinese American and founder of the Hong Kong Noodle Company began offering the tasty treats to the post World War I unemployed men who congregated in the streets outside of his bakery. The first well-recognized fortune cookie factory that mass-produced fortune cookies was the Lotus Fortune Cookie Company and was opened by Edward Louie in 1964. Strangely enough, the first fortune cookie factory in China opened in 1993, but soon afterwards was closed due to poor sales and lack of interest in the product.

For more information on the history of fortune cookies or for a free fortune cookie recipe, please visit the Ultimate Gourmet Fortune Cookie website where you can find a display of big fortune cookies, giant gourmet fortune cookies or just the plain old traditional fortune cookie.

Seasonal Themes: Ideas for Easter

2005-03-17T11:26:00.000-08:00

Easter is fast approaching and the perennial backyard Easter Egg hunt is looming large. After the frenzied hunt is over, what’s left? Enough egg salad sandwiches for a month of Sundays; millions of plastic eggs tossed into landfills and kids with sticky hands and a sugar rush from the candy eggs they scooped up from their hiding places in the garden.

There is another option: Brightly-colored, homemade fortune cookies filled with trinkets, candy, coins or personalized messages from the Easter Bunny can replace traditional eggs in the backyard egg hunt. Imagine palm-sized fortune cookie Easter Eggs that spill treats like a piñata when broken open. Now that's multi-culturalism!

Fat-Free or Traditional Fortune Cookie Recipe Variation:
Achieve pastel colors by simply adding small amounts of food coloring to the fortune cookie batter. Cut back a little on the water called for in the recipe if a good amount of food coloring is added. (Use the liquid food coloring, not the paste.) For a complementary copy of our free basic cookie recipe, please visit the Ultimate Gourmet Fortune Cookie Website and click on "Free Recipe" located on the navigation menu.

Cookie Stuffers:
Individualized Fortunes: "The Easter Bunny Loves Katie"
Scriptural Fortunes: "He is Risen."
Edibles: Five or Six Miniature Jelly Beans, Small Wrapped Chocolates
Other Stuffers: Coins, small toys, flavored lip balm, stickers, etc.

Dipping and Decorating:
Use candy melts for appropriate Easter colors and follow the "Dipping Instructions" in the Ultimate Gourmet Fortune Cookie Cookbook. Decorate with sprinkles or other seasonal candies.

Packaging:
Fortune cookies do need to be wrapped well to stay fresh. For your "Easter Egg" cookies, cut the "zipper" off of sandwich bags. Insert the cookie (nestled on a bed of bright green excelsior, if you wish) and tie the bag with raffia. Beautiful!

Make cookies in a variety of sizes and colors. Hide some in the garden and fill an Easter Basket with others.

Happy Easter from The Ultimate Gourmet Fortune Cookie Cookbook!

Visit the Ultimate Gourmet Fortune Cookie Website

2005-03-16T11:39:00.000-08:00

Visitors to this Blog are invited to visit the Ultimate Gourmet Fortune Cookie Website to:

Learn more about the history of fortune cookies.
Get seasonal ideas for making and decorating gourmet fortune cookies.
Get a free gourmet fortune cookie recipe
Oh, yeah...
You can also buy the cookbook!

(We'd appreciate it!)

The Asian History of Fortune Cookies

2005-03-10T08:16:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of: The Ultimate Gourmet Fortune Cookie Cookbook

Moon Cakes in China

There is quite a bit of controversy surrounding the origin of these little cookies, and there is no clear-cut explanation or historical record as to how they came in existence.

The story of the Moon Cakes comes from ancient Chinese history. On special occasions, primarily harvest time, the Chinese celebrated by giving Moon Cakes made from lotus nut paste. During the 13th and 14th centuries, China became occupied by the Mongols. A revolution was being planned to overthrow the Mongolian regime, but the Chinese people had to devise a way to circulate the word of the uprising without alerting the Mongols. Apparently, the Mongols had no affinity for lotus nut paste, and the Chinese people hid secret messages inside the Moon Cakes and distributed them inside the walled cities. The Moon Cakes contained instructions coordinating the patriotic revolution which ultimately led to the inception of the Ming Dynasty. The Moon Cake revolution gave rise to a tradition of giving cakes with messages of goodwill tucked inside.

There are reports that in the mid 1840’s, a rudimentary form of fortune cookies appeared in the U.S., introduced by the Chinese men who immigrated to the U.S. to work building the the railways in Nevada and California. These men lived in isolated work camps and in order to celebrate their traditional Moon festival without their traditional lotus nut paste Moon Cakes, they passed out hard biscuits with notes of well-wishes and good fortunes tucked inside.

For a free fortune cookie recipe or for more fortune cookie trivia, facts and information, visit the Gourmet Fortune Cookie Website.