Fortune Cookies revisited

This isn't a new recipe—I posted it here last year when I made it for the first time—but yesterday we celebrated the Chinese New Year and I thought a revisit was worth while. Something I didn't have when last I posted this recipe was a Silpat, but now I do. I won't bake them without one again.

Fortune Cookies
Yield: ~12 cookies

Ingredients:
  ● 2 egg whites
  ● 1/2 cup flour, sifted
  ● 1/2 cup sugar
  ● 2 tbsp water
  ● 1 tsp almond extract
  ● 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:
Set oven to 400F degrees.

1) Place egg whites in a bowl and beat with electric mixer on medium speed until very frothy, almost soft peaks. Add sifted flour, sugar, and extracts, and mix until combined. Add ~2 tbsp water to thin the batter

2) Prepare your baking sheet with a Siilpat, parchment paper, or just use an ungreased baking sheet. My first time through I tried the paper and the ungreased sheet but found a very lightly oiled tray to be best. The Silpat, however, beats both those.

3) Working from the center in a circular motion, spread 1 tbsp of batter into a thin 5 inch circle. Bake only two cookies at a time (that's all you'll have time to shape before they cool).

8) Bake until edges are lightly browned, ~5 minutes, but watch carefully—it happens fast! Take out of oven and immediately remove the first cookie from the pan with a very thin spatula.

9) Work quickly to shape: flip the cookie over and place fortune paper (if you made one) on top. Bring sides up and pinch together—you now have a cookie that closely resembles an upright, hard taco shell, sealed at the top. Next bend the bottom middle of the "taco-cookie" over the edge of a cup. Transfer the newly shaped cookie to a muffin tin to help hold its shape while it cooks, then quickly move on to the second one. For the shaping to work it must be completely finished before the cookie really begins to cool, which is fast because they are thin. If you don't work fast enough they will break instead of bending.