Homemade Fortune Cookies
Fill these Homemade Fortune Cookies with your own personal fortunes for a fun and delicious crafty treat!
I love when food crosses into the craft category and these cookies certainly do.
That’s what makes fortune cookies so fun to do yourself, even though they are a bit tedious to make.
You can put your own notes inside the fortune cookies, and gift them to friends, family, co-workers, and so on, and also customize them for different events.
As I mentioned briefly above, a fortune cookie is not as easy to make as say, a batch of Peanut Butter Cookies.
These are made and folded individually, and because they have to be crimped while they’re hot, you can only do a few at a time.
My recommendation is to get a few helpers and have fun making them together. It goes a lot quicker that way!
How to Make Fortune Cookies:
Start by whipping egg whites, melted butter, sugar, vanilla extract, and almond extract until frothy:
Add flour, and whip until the flour *just* disappears:
Shape the batter into small circles on a silicone mat, and notice how thin they are:
Bake until the circles are slightly golden on the edges, then quickly fold the circles in half with the fortune inside, and bring the ends down over the lip of a cup (this is an old picture, but I have a fortune cookie tutorial video below where I show you exactly how to do this).
Once the fortune cookie is crimped, place it into a muffin tin to hold its shape, and let the cookies cool while you repeat with the remaining batter.
Here’s the step-by-step video tutorial, and the recipe is below. Enjoy!
Homemade Fortune Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 large egg whites
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup butter melted
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp almond extract
- 3 tbsp water
- 1 cup all purpose flour (5 oz by weight)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper or a silicone mat, and have your fortune strips ready to go.
- In a stand mixer (or large bowl with a hand mixer), whip the egg whites and sugar on high speed for about 2 minutes, until frothy. Whip in the melted butter, vanilla, almond extract, and water until incorporated. Add the flour and mix until the flour *just* disappears.
- With a tablespoon measure, spoon the batter onto the parchment paper and spread it out into an even 3 inch circle. I recommend not doing any more than 2-3 at a time, since they set very quickly and you will not be able to fold more than that.
- Bake the fortune cookies for 7-8 minutes, until the edges brown slightly. If you let them brown too much, they will snap when you shape them. Conversely, if they don’t brown a little bit, they will also break (but tear, rather than snapping).
- When each batch of fortune cookies finishes baking, remove them from the oven and quickly flip the circle over, and fold your fortune cookie in half, into a semicircle. This is when you slip your note into the cookie (quickly) because if you slip it in right at the beginning, the cookie will be too hot and your paper will stick to the cookie. Place your semicircle onto the edge of a cup, and quickly fold the ends down, to crimp into a fortune cookie shape (see above tutorial video if needed).
- Place the cookie in a muffin tin to let it cool and hold its shape.
- Repeat with the remaining batter and enjoy!
Nutrition
Nutrition is estimated using a food database and is only intended to be used as a guideline for informational purposes.
Post updated in January 2019. Originally posted January 2014.
133 Comments on “Homemade Fortune Cookies”
Came out great, some were sticky so I put them back in the oven right inside the muffin pan after I was done for a little while and they came out crunchy
There’s a bit of a learning curve with these but by the end of my first batch I had it down pretty good! It’s important to make the batter as even as possible when you spread it out on the baking sheet. My other tip is that the silicone mat worked great and parchment did not. So after a less-than stellar bake with one sheet of parchment I went exclusively silicone mat the rest. Much better.
And these are so delicious and delicate… melt in your mouth good!
Made these and it took practice from the first batch to the last. They came out great and delicious. My mom and all her siblings are getting together for a Chinese theme lunch so I thought I would make these to take with a fortune inside too. Great recipe but it is time consuming unless you have a helper. 🥠🥠🥠😋
I followed this recipe, but the cookies did not come out crunchy. Had to trash them all.
Lana, just bake them at 200 degrees for a while until crispy. It will remove any moisture still in the cookie. Especially needed if you live in a humid part of the country! Weather affects this one big time!
I don’t understand how basically everyone else who commented seemed to find it so easy! I’m quite an experienced hobby baker, but these utterly failed for me. No idea what I did wrong…I followed all directions and even watched the video. 🙁 I flipped them over after baking (I tried all different bake times from 5-9 minutes, and then slowly folded them over the fortunes, and they all (except ONE) snapped. It was a total failure. 🙁 But I’m not going to give the recipe a poor rating because if it worked for everyone else, clearly I just did something wrong. : / I only wish I knew what it was…
Less oven time on the one hand, bake very small batches, and fold them when they are really hot. If you let them cool even slightly , they will snap.
Bake less time, fold while still soft. Then put them back in the oven in the muffin tins at 200/250 degrees. Bake slow until crispy, and it will remove the remainder of the the moisture from the cookie. Weather affects the baking greatly.
incredible
What is the best way to keep them crispy after baking and shaping them? Should I store them immediately in a container or bag or leave out?
Made this w/some friends this weekend. The cookies tasted soooo delicious!! And yes, the tips about cooking them at just the right amount of time were great so that they didn’t collapse or tear. However, I’m surprised nobody mentioned how hot the cookies are. We tried plastic gloves and paper towels to various degrees of success. What did you guys to do handle the cookies w/out burning your fingertips?
Can I make the batter ahead of time and let it set for a few hours
This batter was much thicker than the recipe I usually use, which made the whole process harder than normal. Tasted great, we just had a lot of ugly cookies.
Once I found my actual recipe copy it appears this has double the flour, which probably accounted for a lot of my issues.
The trick is to make these cookies VERY flat. You definitely don’t want the middle part thicker or they come out cakey, not crisp. Also added twice the amount of almond extract, for a bit more flavor. Very fun to make. Time consuming! Do it with a buddy so you can make batches of six or so at a time!
I loved this recipe. The steps were easy to follow and the video really helped. My only issue is that I followed the steps and my fingertips got burned with each folding over a cup. If I waited a bit, then the cookie would harden and break before it folded. I didn’t see evidence of that in the video. The flavour was delicious, the colour was perfect and the idea is fabulous, however, I don’t know how to make this recipe without the slight injury to my hands. Can anyone advise?
I made these and they turned out beautifully. Im curious what type of paper you use for the fortunes. I used basic printer paper and they ended up with grease spots.
Thanks for your help!
I made these tonight for my NYE party tomorrow—thank you for the step by step directions! Not all of them came out great, many cracked, but I did end up with about 20 cookies. Happy 2022!
Thank you for this recipe! Cookies are delicious! Just wondering if the recipe will work ok with liquid egg whites in the carton to eliminate having leftover egg yolks and also make it a little easier to make half a batch?
These were absolutely PERFECT! They look just like fortune cookies and taste like fortune cookies but WAY BETTER- almost like a mix between a fortune cookie and sugar cookie. This was my first time making them so we had trouble at first, they were all breaking apart. Turns out, we were just under baking them. As soon as you find the right baking time and know when to pull them out, they form perfectly! Even though this was my very first time and these things take practice, I ended up with about 20 perfect fortune cookies! Yum!
These look amazing! Curious if you know how long the cooked cookies will last for?