Smell the Daisiez: January 2014

So I love to do fun little crafts with my daughter, and lets face it she does to so this year I thought I would try something that we haven’t done in years past…..celebrate Chinese New Year. Now I don’t me we will celebrate in the truest sense of the word but in a simplified Americanized way.

Some of the few things we have done have been looking up our Chinese Zodiac. Did you know that the Zodiac calendar has twelve animals and each is like a horoscope that describes the person born in that yea? Well, I found a little wheel that explains a little of how it works on one of my favorite blogs Blue Skies Ahead. She also has the link to the zodiac wheel.

I also found animal masks to print out and use. We sure have had fun with those as well.

Now for the Americanized part of Chinese culture….Fortune cookies!!!

I also found a link to The Jew and the Carrot where she tells you how to make your own cookies. How cool is that? So I thought I can do that….so we did. I made a few minor adjustments to the recipe like I don’t use almond extract so I substituted lemon extract and I was also really good. I also omitted cardamom since I didn’t have it and hate to say it have never even heard of it before. Here is my adapted version and for the original check out The Jew and the Carrot.

Fortune Cookies

1/2 c sugar

1/2 c all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp kosher salt

2 egg whites

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp lemon extract

12 strips of paper with fortunes

In most cases you are supposed to mix the dry ingredients and wet ingredients seperate but I never do. I just mix the wet ingredients then add the dry and it seems to work out fine. Mix the batter until smooth.

Heavily grease a cookie sheet before putting the batter on in about three inch circles. I used this cookie cutter as a reference to see how big I wanted them to be. Which ended up being pretty big! Oh well, next time!