Suggestion for oil/grease-resistant paper for fortune cookie messages?

[soysauce]

In my very brief reading on Google, fortune cookies may use an edible paper with edible ink. This would require a dedicated printer, one that has never had traditional ink run through it. There are also pens with edible ink you can use to write and draw.

Very interesting web site for those looking to print edibles or have them made for you:

https://inkedibles.com/

Pretty much everything else I read made no mention of edible paper and ink. I guessing they used plain paper and a pen or a printer with regular ink.

Here is a place to buy either pre-printed fortune paper slips or customize them. Not exactly what you're asking about but may be useful.

https://www.kcfortunecookiefactory.com/product/fortune-cookie-slips/


Could your cookie recipe be tweaked to have less oil/butter so less likely to stain the paper?


FYI: You can still get clogs using edible ink, just like with traditional inks.

https://blog.inkedibles.com/edible-ink-cartridges/can-edible-ink-cause-clogs-at-the-print-heads.html

It's been a long time since I made fortune cookies. I remember typing the fortunes on a manual typewriter. I don't remember the recipe but I see that some of the homemade and commercial recipes do not use an oil or butter. .
Maybe the type of fat used would affect the amount of paper staining, with fats that are solid at room temperature such as shortening being less staining than fats like vegetable oil that are liquid at room temperature? On the other had, since the cookies are folded when hot, the melting point of the fat might not matter.
I wonder if dusting the dough with a little extra flour or cornstarch, or dusting the paper, would absorb enough of the oil/fat to protect the paper?

 

[fredericdenis]

Thank you @CreativeMess,
This would be less of an out-of-the-box solution as I'm hoping for, but hey, at this point, I'm open to anything.

I'm actually waiting for samples from a paper manufacturer from Maine (who was kind enough to send them despite me being a client Z for them), and also from a paper converter in the province of Quebec (where I'm from). If they don't work, I'll try to remember where I've put that iron and make some tests as per your suggestion.

 

[fredericdenis]

Thank you @soysauce ,
We changed the vegetable oil of the original recipe for butter to enhance the taste but you might be right with the type of fat vs the amount of stain. The industrial manufacturer of cookies in Montreal uses coconut oil if I remember well. Another test to be made is to play with the amount of butter in the recipe; how far down can we go keeping a good taste and a workable batter.

Oh, and yes, what we've got for recipe makes more a batter than a dough. Dusting it is not possible. Dusting the paper, maybe.

Thanks for all the suggestions, really appreciated!

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I woould assume that water based inks - dye or pigment - won't be able to do such job at all on a oily/repellent surface,
you would need some type of (eco)solvent ink for such job. I'm not familiar with the regulations whether it's o.k. with a print on one side which does not come into contact with the food on the other side.

 

[PeterBJ]

I also think that oil/grease resistant paper is not compatible with water based inks. a few days ago I wetted a Q-tip with pigment refill ink IS 1128 and made a stamp on a silicone treated baking paper. This paper is both grease and water resistant. Here is the result of the stamp test magnified 50 times:

Notice that the ink doesn't wet the paper. The treatment of the paper and the printing ink used for the fortune cookie messages is possibly a guarded trade secret.

 

[fredericdenis]

@Ink stained Fingers , @PeterBJ , thank you much both for your comments and suggestions,

To be honest, I had that doubt about the ink on such surface (thanks @PeterBJ for the picture), but not being from the print industry, I didn't know what to look for if the water-based ink didn't work. Actually, I had found UV-curable inks, but that calls for a special printer. I'll check what I can find for applicable solvent-based inks (Thanks @Ink stained Fingers ).

I also thought of going with a plain paper, print it, and coat it myself (either with food-safe wax, or some other food-safe coating). We'll see what's the easiest to do on a small scale like mine, and which is the most cost-effective.

[...] The treatment of the paper and the printing ink used for the fortune cookie messages is possibly a guarded trade secret.

... and maybe some manufacturers didn't bother with such details...

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I also thought of going with a plain paper, print it, and coat it myself (either with food-safe wax, or some other food-safe coating). We'll see what's the easiest to do on a small scale like mine, and which is the most cost-effective.

That might be another approach - first printing and then impregnating the paper

 

[fredericdenis]

Quick update in the search of the fortune Graal...

I received yesterday samples of OGR and NSR(?) papers from the company in ME, USA. Their website claimed excellent print ability and I was surprised to see how good looking the document got out of my inkjet printer. Ref first picture. These paper are lightweight though; their heaviest sample was 50lb for 3000 sq ft, close to the 75 gsm I’ve been using (81 gsm if I did my calculations right)


I tried to not get too excited because the real test was contact with the buttery fat. Lower expectations = smaller disappointments, right?
Right. I tried fortune messages with the 50 lb NSR paper, and some with 57 gsm OGR paper (heaviest OGR sample received). Ref picture 2. The bottom message of each column was put in direct contact with the melted butter fat; the other were just each put in a cookie, and taken out 1 hour after. So these still absorb fat, and either the printer characters wash away (OGR) or the paper becomes translucent (NSR). Definitely a disappointment- yet small.
So I think I’m headed to manual coating tests after printing. Suddenly, I feel like I’m back on the long and winding road, hoping it leads to the door of a solution.

 

[The Hat]

Quick update in the search of the fortune Graal...

All papers suitable for use in inkjet printer will never work in an oily environment, the two are just incompatible, alternatively you can print on your desired paper and hot laminate each sheet separately.. Like an I.D. card…

 

[stratman]

Would dye sublimation printing be an answer to the fading from cooking or fats?

How does the fortune cookie company do it?! They use paper, right?

Looking further into ingredients of fortune cookies... it appears no butter is used - 0 Fats in nutritional labels. Some use Sesame Seed Oil or Soybean Oil, for instance. Would paper fortunes behave differently with these oils? Probably taste different.

https://www.vegknowledge.com/vegan/are-fortune-cookies-vegan/