The Bake Off Bake Along || Biscuit Week – Fortune Cookies

Here we are for week two of the bake off bake along where, during the show I thought it would be fun to try fortune cookies. The contestants made it look so tricky, surely it wouldn’t be that bad, right? Well no, there’s a reason no one ever has made their own fortune cookies, not even in those fancy pants Chinese restaurants in China Town. Why? Because they’re a pain (quite literally, unless you have fingers of steel) so fiddly, and though each one probably takes less than 5 mins to make and the batter is easy peasy, you will spend all of your Sunday evening pressing those damn circles against a glass praying they won’t crack.

I may moan, but it was still a bake I’m glad I tried and hey look at me, getting a technical in during week two!

In terms of this weeks Bake Off episode, I’m glad of the outcome, Chris was a bit too smarmy for my liking. Stephen was a deserved winner again, but he’s almost too good. I hope in future weeks there’s a bit more healthy competition and he gets a run for his money a bit. I know it came out a bit crap, but I also loved Flo’s operation biscuit, I used to love that game as a child!

Bake Off Bake Along Biscuit Week Fortune Cookies 2

Bake Off Bake Along Biscuit Week Fortune Cookies 3

For making the fortune cookies themselves, it seemed really rather simple at first. You whizz up some oil, egg whites and flavourings with some water, then sift in caster sugar, cornflour and plain flour. Easy right? That is, until you read on and realise your fortune cookie batter is supposed to chill in the fridge for an hour! Not an issue, you see, unless it’s already 7pm on a Sunday night!

To give the biscuits the best chance they had, I persevered and into the fridge with the batter, whilst Adam decided what appropriately delicious Asian dinner we could have alongside them.

The first fortune cookie from the bunch isn’t pictured as we ate it. Just like the other bake off contestants it was too big and too thick. Still delicious, but without much of a crunch. Shame.  I might also add that although I usually like the taste of mass manufactured fortune cookies anyway (and I know a lot of people who don’t) the homemade ones with their vanillary almondy flavour are delicious! Very much like a thin French butter biscuit, even though they actually contain no butter!

Bake Off Bake Along Biscuit Week Fortune Cookies 4

Bake Off Bake Along Biscuit Week Fortune Cookies 6

Upon sliding them out of the oven you are very much against the clock and have a short window of barely 10 seconds to slide off the baking parchment, insert your little fortune, fold, press and then bend over a glass. Adam was required to help and together through each batch we got into a little routine.

I also decided that I’d do two flavourings – plain with little red hearts (most of which I got confused with and the ended up upside down!) and the others I dipped in coconut icing and desiccated coconut. Yum. Though then when I ran out of icing (the mixture actually makes a lot more fortune cookies that you’d first realise) I switched to salted caramel icing and bronze crunch.

Bake Off Bake Along Biscuit Week Fortune Cookies 9

Bake Off Bake Along Biscuit Week Fortune Cookies 8

Bake Off Bake Along Biscuit Week Fortune Cookies 5

I did get a bit bored by the time it was nearly 9.30pm and the last fortune cookie was a giant one! Though even that still snapped satisfyingly! Overall  I think the appearance of them was good, the remainder that I’ve tried were all appropriately hard and subtly sweet and crispy. As an impressive little pudding post delicious Chinese dinner (Adam makes really great Asian food, and in this feast we had crispy skinned sea bream with ginger chilli and spring onions, and cashew chicken with pak choi), it could really take a dinner party to the next level.

Bake Off Bake Along Biscuit Week Fortune Cookies 7

Bake Off Bake Along Biscuit Week Fortune Cookies 10

Say that, would I actually ever make them again?

Probably not.

However, I did enjoy this week’s #bakeoffbakealong and for a technical challenge, it certainly could have gone far worse!

 

To see my Bake Off Biscuit challenges from previous years click on the links below:

Biscuit Fridge and Mini Fridge Cakes

Vienesse Whirls