I'm not very crafty, but we had a little time on our hands yesterday so the kids and I made paper fortune cookie valentines. And now I remember why we stopped making homemade valentines a few years back. The kids totally do not enjoy it. There's a lot of gnashing of teeth and dramatic sighing. It's almost as if elementary school-aged boys don't like love.
Anyway, assembly instructions are here should you feel compelled to torture yourself (I find it's easier not to glue-dot the edges of the circle together but to overlap them loosely and glue-dot everything at the end). The folding part is a little tricky, but you get the hang of it after a while. You, meaning the adult in the group. The kids will have long left the room by then. The printed-out fortunes, which I culled from various sources like this one, are tucked inside on little slips of paper just like their edible counterparts. I kept the sayings on the motivational side rather than anything too emo as I don't want to be sued on Valentine's Day. Not again. Also, I'm the last one to give advice on matters of the heart.
While doing my research, I came across several hilarious fortunes that people have found in actual fortune cookies over the years. Here are some of my favorites:
- You will be hungry again in one hour.
- That wasn't chicken.
- You will receive a fortune cookie.
- Help, I'm being held prisoner in a Chinese bakery!
- Never wear your best pants when you go to fight for freedom.
- Ignore previous cookie.
- Run.
Happy Valentine's Day!
I'm kind of thrown by the concept of "elementary-school-aged" boys. When I started reading this blog, weren't they being described as "the toddler" and "the preschooler"?
SO CONFUSED! It hasn't been *that* long... has it?
Posted by: Mara | February 16, 2014 at 06:43 PM
Mara: It has indeed been *that long*. The Preschooler is soon to be the Sixth Grader (middle school, no less). Time sure does fly.
Thanks for reading for so long!
Posted by: Tammy | February 16, 2014 at 08:43 PM
Tammy, per your suggestion in Wintersweet, I made Whoopie Pies for Valentines Day. I made a trial batch the week before and liked them so much I didn't bother with filling them. Those cookies were still magenta after baking, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
I made them again Thursday night, intending to share with family. All went well with the recipe. It was the oven, totally coated in something from the baked bean pot last weekend. Billows of white smoke when the oven got up to temperature, three times that the smoke alarm went off (which triggers the house alarm and the alarm company).
So these Whoopie Pies were beautiful. Dark chocolate brown, lovely filling. Plus they had a bit of a smoky tinge. We called them the Barbecue Flavor.
I love the cookbook, by the way. Lots of inspiration for winter baking!
Posted by: Becki | February 17, 2014 at 10:14 PM
Becki: It's funny you should mention the color--I made the whoopie pies a few months back and they definitely had a slight magenta hue, too. Usually, they're just brown. This time, there was a Red Velvet Cake vibe going on, which went over well. Whoever can figure out how to keep that beet-red color going strong in the finished cake instead of using artificial food coloring is going to make a lot of money. (So glad you're enjoying the book!)
Posted by: Tammy | February 20, 2014 at 11:14 AM