What To Do With Fortune Cookies

TIP OF THE DAY: What To Do With Fortune Cookies

January 27, 2013 at 8:17 am · Filed under Cookies-Cake-Pastry, Recipes

We recently spent a month undergoing a kitchen renovation. We ordered in a lot of Chinese food and ended up with a lot of uneaten fortune cookies.

It’s a problem bigger than us: Over the past month, 8,100 people searched Google for “what to do with fortune cookies.”

Rather than toss them out, we were inspired by this photo of peanut butter-stuffed fortune cookies from the Nutropolitan Museum Of Art, an art gallery of uber-creative ways to use peanut butter. It’s the concept of Lee Zalben, owner of Peanut Butter & Co., a New York City peanut butter restaurant.

It’s not easy to pry fortune cookies apart, but you can take them apart in pieces, remove the paper fortune, and still have enough of a cavity to stuff as a snack. In addition to peanut butter or PB&J, consider:

Break fortune cookies in half, remove fortune, fill, and eat. Photo by Andrea Hernandez | Peanut Butter & Co.

Almond cream

Flavored peanut butter, from chocolate to cinnamon raisin to spicy (check out the flavors at Peanut Butter & Co.).

Flavored yogurt

Pudding

Sweetened ricotta and mini chocolate chips—a Chinese cannoli

Sweetened sour cream

Whipped cream

DIP INTO CHOCOLATE

Then there are chocolate-dipped fortune cookies. A coating of chocolate transforms a ho-hum fortune cookie into a real treat. You can turn dipping and decorating into an hour of entertainment for adults or kids.

Get out the fondue pot and melt the chocolate—chocolate chips are easy, but we prefer gourmet chocolate bars. Provide dishes of sprinkles, mini chocolate chips and M&Ms, and other garnishes (we cut up candied orange peel—the result was heavenly).

And don’t forget waxed paper and food storage bags, so guests can take home what they make.

Decorate your fortune cookies. Photo by
Claire Freierman | THE NIBBLE.

WHAT ELSE TO DO WITH FORTUNE COOKIES

Fortune cookies can be quite versatile when turned into crumbs or larger broken pieces.

Croutons: Top fruit salads, puddings, and other desserts; top green salads with sweet dressings; use instead of (or in addition to) fried noodles on a Chinese chicken salad.

Cookie Crumbs: This may be the best everyday use. The crumbs created by pulsing fortune cookies in the food processor are delicious. If you use cookie crumbs often enough, you may find yourself gathering leftover fortune cookies from friends instead of purchasing boxes of crumbs.

Fortune Cookie Treats: Substitute crushed fortune cookies for the Rice Krispies.

Graham Cracker Substitute: You can substitute fortune cookie crumbs for graham cracker crumbs. Try peanut butter balls.

Party Centerpiece: Turn the cookies into a croque em bouche, a traditional French wedding “cake” made from cream puffs.

Pie Crust: Pulse into crumbs in a food processor, or roll out with a rolling pin to make a cookie crust. Use a chocolate pudding filling for an easy chocolate pie.

Sundaes: Layer scoops of ice cream for a fortune cookie parfait, or just sprinkle crushed cookies over the top. You can also start serving fortune cookies with ice cream.

Suggestions? We’d love to add to this list.

MAKE YOUR OWN FORTUNE COOKIES

Want to bake your own? Heres a delicious fortune cookies recipe.

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