Giant Fortune Cookie Cake

More About This Recipe

• This fortune cookie-shaped cake is a fun and creative way to send a special message to your friends. 
  
  I can't resist cracking open a fortune cookie. I might be busting at the seams after a huge meal at a Chinese restaurant, but I never turn down a fortune cookie. 
  
  Admittedly, I don't always eat the entire cookie. I might just take a bite, but I have to see what's written on the tiny piece of paper inside. Sometimes the message gives me hope that a fortune is on its way, other times it tells of good health, and on occasion the message is just plain funny!
  
  Making a giant fortune cookie-shaped cake isn't much harder than actually making a fortune cookie. To make a fortune cookie, you take a round piece of cookie dough, bake it, then while it's hot you fold it over and pull the two ends together. I wanted to use a similar technique so that the cake really looked like a fortune cookie. Using my fondant, I was able to fold it just like I would the cookie dough. The only major difference was the cake underneath!
  
  This recipe will create two small fortune cookie cakes which can be personalized with any message you desire. They'd be fun to give someone to share big news like a pregnancy, to wish them a happy birthday, or to tell them something you've always wanted to. The possibilities are endless, and hopefully good fortune will follow anyone who makes one of these cakes.
  
  I chose to make two small fortune cookie cakes instead of one large one, because I knew folding an extremely large circle of fondant would be too challenging to do by myself. So I started by preparing one Betty Crocker yellow cake mix and pouring it into two 6-inch cake pans.
  
  Since the cake pans are small, it took a bit longer to bake than it would in an 8-inch pan. Mine were done at about the 35-minute mark.
  
  I find it easier to carve my cakes when they are frozen, so I allowed my cakes to cool, peeled off the parchment paper, and popped them in the freezer for a few hours. Once they were good and firm I pulled them out of the freezer, cut them into two equal halves, and carved them to look like half of the fortune cookie.
  
  Be sure as you are carving to set your cakes next to each other to make sure they look similar.
  
  I frosted each half of my cake and popped it in the freezer again for a while, just so they'd be firm and easy to work with.
  
  I think the trickiest part of making this cake was trying to get the right color of fondant. I tried some brown food coloring but found it didn't give me the right color so I ended up adding some cocoa powder and a little bit of yellow food coloring. I recommend adding a small amount at a time so you end up with a nice tan color. Once you have the fondant the color you like, divide it in half. Roll one piece out into a 14-inch circle.
  
  Grab one cake, and set the halves on the circle of fondant in the upper one-third portion of the circle with the wider ends together.
  
  Now, moving quickly, lift the fondant over and set it on the cakes, but do not press down.
  
  Now you want to fold the fondant into the shape of a fortune cookie. In order to do this you'll need to put your hands under both halves of the cake and carefully fold the fondant and the cake together. Adjust the edges of the fondant as needed. You might need to even add a little bit of fondant underneath the edges to give it the right shape.
  
  Fortune cookies usually have browned edges, so I brushed some cocoa powder on the edges of the fondant for a more realistic look.
  
  Then I created my fortune. I rolled out some white fondant cut it into a long strip, and wrote my fortune using a black food coloring marker.
  
  Before adding the actual fortune to the cake, I lifted the cake and set it on a cake board. I simply tucked the end of the fortune under a flap of fondant. Then I went back and did it all over again for the second cake.
  
  And there you have it! A giant fortune cookie to deliver happy messages, and delicious cake!
  
  Beth happily spends her days creating fun food and handmade chocolate, and enjoys sharing step-by-step tutorials with her readers on her blog Hungry Happenings. Be sure to check out her profile to see all the other festive foods she's made for Tablespoon.com.