WEBVTT - How do they make fortune cookies?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff from house stuff works dot com where

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<v Speaker 1>smart happens. Hi, I'm marshall brained with today's question, how

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<v Speaker 1>do they make fortune cookies? If you want to think

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<v Speaker 1>about it this way, you could call a fortune cookie

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<v Speaker 1>a food technology. Bread, cheese, and ice cream are all

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<v Speaker 1>food technologies. They use special biological, chemical, or mechanical processes

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<v Speaker 1>during their creation. In the case of a fortune cookie,

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<v Speaker 1>what you're trying to create is a hard, hollow shell

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<v Speaker 1>around a sheet of paper, so that nothing sticks to

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<v Speaker 1>the paper and no grease transfers to it. Cooks create

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<v Speaker 1>hard shells in several different ways. For example, taco shells

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<v Speaker 1>are hard, so are dried noodles, so are sugar cones.

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<v Speaker 1>At the ice cream parlor. Of these three, of fortune

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<v Speaker 1>cookie is most like a sugar cone. Taco shells are

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<v Speaker 1>d fried and therefore greasy, and noodles don't taste very

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<v Speaker 1>good when they're dry. You may have noticed that many cookies,

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<v Speaker 1>including ginger snaps and chocolate chip cookies, are soft when

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<v Speaker 1>they come out of the oven, but they harden as

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<v Speaker 1>they cool. The batter of a fortune cookie, made up

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<v Speaker 1>of flour, sugar, oil, and so on, has this property

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<v Speaker 1>In spades. It acts something like a heat sensitive plastic.

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<v Speaker 1>Fortune cookies start out is flat four inch circles. When

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<v Speaker 1>they're just out of the oven. While they're still hot,

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<v Speaker 1>the cookie is very flexible, so you place the fortune

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<v Speaker 1>inside the cookie and folded into the proper fortune cookie shape,

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<v Speaker 1>which means that you fold it in half over the

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<v Speaker 1>fortune and then draw the tips together over a rod

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<v Speaker 1>or the edge of a plate. Once it cools, the

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<v Speaker 1>cookie becomes extremely hard and crunchy. If you look on

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<v Speaker 1>the web, you can find recipes for fortune cookies. You

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<v Speaker 1>can make up your own fortunes on little sheets of paper.

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<v Speaker 1>There are great for parties. Do you have any ideas

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<v Speaker 1>or suggestions for this podcast? If so, please send me

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<v Speaker 1>an email at podcast at how stuff works dot com.

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