Do you have kids who enjoy both cooking AND craft? Then this idea is for you. It’s one of those crafts that anybody can make and has been inspired by Chinese New Year, although our cookies are admittedly very far removed from anything Chinese and we sure hope not to offend anybody. Traditional Chinese fortune cookies are crunchy biscuits with a piece of paper containing words of wisdom inside, don’t we all love them? Ours are a bit different. They include a home-made choc-chip cookie with a fortune we thought up ourselves (wisdom may or may not be present) wrapped inside a colourful piece of tissue paper. Initially my daughter was a bit upset that ours are not like the traditional ones, but once they were all prettily wrapped up she was very proud of what we’d made together and couldn’t wait to hand them out to family and friends. Somehow she even kept a tally in her head of which fortunes had already been revealed and which still remained in paper to be opened, saying which fortune she hoped certain people received and which she hoped most to open herself.
Here is how you can make some of these fun cookies at home:
You will need
• Home made cookies (or store bought if you are short of time). Ours are choc-chip flavour but any tasty recipe will do
• Grease-proof baking paper
• Bakers twine or string
• Coloured tissue paper
• Yarn
• Scissors
Printable fortune template
Use this template for a set of blank fortunes where you can make up your own, or this template to use some pre-written fortunes that my kids and I made up
How to
Bake your favourite cookie recipe with your kids. Ours are a gluten-free version of choc-chip cookies with 50% less sugar than the original recipe intended. They tasted good but we need to work on the texture so I won’t share the recipe with you just yet.
Now comes the fun part: while your cookies are baking and cooling, write down some fortunes with help from the kids. They’ll come up with some good ones, trust me! I did need to edit out a few of the less ‘nice’ fortunes my girls came up with just in case Nanna got them though (e.g. ‘You will be a toilet’ did not make the cut, and ‘you will do the dishes’ made it only just).
Wrap each cookie in grease-proof baking paper and tie it together with a fortune and and a piece of bakers twine. The grease proof paper is essential to stop getting grease spots on the tissue paper.
Then wrap once more in a square of coloured tissue paper and tie with a piece of coloured yarn.
They make lovely surprises for friends and family when they come over to visit, or take them to a gathering and they will be lots of fun!
You can find lots more fun ideas for Chinese New Year on our A Happy New Year board on Pinterest. Are you following us?
More festive craft ideas
• Make your own fairy crackers like these ones we made for my daughter’s Enchanted forest fairy party
• Use this free printable template to create your own party hats
• Plan your child’s party using our free party planner printable
• Make a super-duper easy-peasy Frozen themed cake
• My kids (and all their friends) loved these simple chocolate marshmallow pop treats
I think these are lovely. My son would really enjoy making these – and I think they would be a great party favour too!