Happy Birthday Rodney!!

My cute container and the extra cookie.

Today is my husband's birthday. Since I knew that Rodney is not a huge fan of cards and such, I decided to make him Fortune Cookies instead! I figured that they would be both a birthday treat and a card of sorts. 

First, I looked up how to make fortune cookies. I found many different recipes, but I used this one at Serious Eats. Then I scoured the internet for ideas for the "fortunes" (or, in this case birthday wishes), reworded them to express my wishes, printed them out in 8-pt Arial font and then cut them into strips.  

At about this point it dawned on me that I needed something to put the cookies in. I knew that Michaels sold containers that looked like Chinese take-out containers, so I went there to buy one. Goodness! The choices! There must have been 15 or so different colors and patterns to choose from. Finally, I had a pack of decorations and a container so I was off home to actually make the cookies.

Now I said I used the recipe from Serious Eats, which I did, but first I was silly and tried a recipe from a cookbook I had as a kid. I had made them before (like when I was 12) and I remembered them as being fairly easy, but that did not happen yesterday. After a few tries at making it work I went to the Serious Eats recipe and it worked out just fine. The trickiest part is getting the fortune inside and getting it folded before the cookie hardens. After the cookies cooled into shape, I melted some milk chocolate chips and coated them with the chocolate.

I did not get quite as many cookies as I was supposed to, but that was okay. The recipe says it makes 6-8, but I only got four. I did make them fairly large however. Since I did have fortunes for more cookies, I just curled them a bit and put them in the bottom of the container. That way Rodney will still get to read my wishes for him!

Now, about that container… For some reason I felt that I had to get the container ready before I made my cookies, but I would have actually saved time if I had decorated it while the chocolate was setting up. Nevertheless, I think the container turned out cute. (Sorry I only have pictures of one side.)  There was one issue though. It turns out only three of my four cookies would fit inside! 

A better view of a cookie.

Cookie Close-up!

Inside the container.