DIY Fortune Cookies

I know I have been a bit MIA lately. The past few nights I have been tired and haven't wanted to sit down and think too hard. I figured it would be better to wait until the morning so my post would be better. Then yesterday morning my plan was to drop Hazel at school and go to the gym and come home and write at least one of my posts that I have been wanting to write (yes, I have plans for several in my head and photos), however I was asked by the parent/child class teacher to help out since her assistant was on vacation and the substitute she was suppose to have had a child get sick in the car on the way to school. Needless to say, I stepped in and stayed at school for the morning. So here I am today. Later today it will be time for Sharing Saturday, but for now, I'll explain why I was a bit MIA last week.

You may remember from last year that I am the leader of the Stewardship Ministries Committee at my church. We kicked off our month long campaign on Sunday. Our theme this year is Joining HIM in Giving. You can see the logo I made above. Our goal this month is to focus on four gifts God has given each of us each week. This past Sunday it was the Gift of Life. This Sunday it will be the Gift of Time. Then the other two Sundays are the Gifts of Talent and Treasure. Similar to last year we also served the coffee on Sunday after the service. In honor of this we got the idea to make stewardship fortune cookies to serve. I have to say making fortune cookies is not as hard as I thought, but it does take a bit of practice. I made all the fortune cookies last Friday. I used a recipe I found on All Recipes. I liked this recipe because it did not have any ingredients I do not keep on hand (one recipe had instant tea), it had butter so they wouldn't stick, and it seemed easy. I did make one substitution. I took out the almond extract (as I know there are young children with nut allergies at church and I didn't want one of them grabbing one and having a reaction) and doubled the amount of vanilla extract. 

My committee helped with the fortunes. After a lot of discussion and thought we decided to mention the gift or gifts used to do each action. Here are some examples of our fortunes.

• God gave us the gift of Life, honor this gift by sending a card to someone on the prayer list.
• God gave us the gift of Life, honor that gift by planting a tree.
• God gave us the gift of Time, give with your time by serving coffee one Sunday at church.
• God gave us the gift of Treasure, honor this by donating to Heifer.
• God gave us the gift of Talents, give your gift by singing in the choir.

 Now the process of making fortune cookies is relatively easy. There is definitely a few things you need to know. Spread the batter really thin and once out of the oven, work quickly!

  In the collage above I am showing you how thick my batter was. In the recipe it said it should be like pancake batter, and mine was thicker. I may have beat the egg whites too long, I guess. Really spread the batter thin and only do a few on a tray. Take them out just when the edges start to brown. Take one onto a board and put in the fortune. Fold it in half and then fold the semicircle in half to make the shape of the fortune cookie. It helps to stick them into a muffin pan to cool. As they cool the cookies harden and keep the shape they are in. I think this would be really neat as a favor at a party or for a child's class election campaign. I know I was a bit afraid of it, but found it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. 

And I should add they were a huge hit!! Everyone loved them. I will definitely be making these again.