Wedding Blog

I absolutely love the idea of little favors for guests. Some people opt not to do them, but I see this as a fun opportunity to bring some kitchen love in. Everyone loves food, right? So, it was an obvious decision to do an edible favor. However, we are still undecided on what exactly we are doing for favors. I do have some fun ideas, but I’m afraid there may not be enough time in my day.

Idea #1 (at least for kids): (Kind of) home-made lollipops

These are SUPER simple to make. I make these for kids whenever I volunteer in classrooms, and they’re always a hit! I found these on This Mama Cooks! blog.

Here are the directions for these fun lollipops!

* 8 Reynolds® FunShapes™ Stars or Hearts Baking Cups (I’ve found these at Dollar Tree with 24 to a pack in both shapes)
* 8 (6-inch) Lollipop sticks (found at any craft store near cake decorating or candy making)
* 40 Jolly Ranchers

Preheat oven to 300°F. Place Reynolds FunShapes Stars and/or Hearts Baking Cups on a cookie sheet with sides.

Make a hole in one side of each of the baking cups near the bottom of the cups with a toothpick. Insert the lollipop sticks from the inside of the cup through the hole made with the toothpick, and push it to the outside leaving at least 1 inch inside the cup.

Arrange 5 candies in each baking cup, placing one candy over the lollipop stick. (It does not need to lay flat, it will melt around the stick.)

Bake 5 to 6 minutes (it took my oven 9 minutes but watch them carefully) or until candy is melted. Carefully remove baking cups from cookie sheet onto a tray to cool; immediately twirl stick to completely coat with candy. Prop sticks with handle of a wooden spoon if necessary to keep the sticks straight in baking cup while lollipop cools.

Remove lollipops from baking cups by tearing foil and peeling away from lollipops.

I think this would be great for kids (especially with heart shapes, who could resist right?). You can make these ahead too, because they don’t go bad quickly.

Idea #2: Home-made Truffles

I made Oreo Truffles when asking my friends and sisters to be my bridesmaids. I also make them as gifts around the holidays, and these are a hit too! These have an easy recipe, but are a little tedious and time consuming to form into truffles. However, buying a truffle mold makes it a LOT easier in this instance, rather than forming into balls and dipping.

The truffles read B My (squiggle pattern on third truffle) B M ? Cheesy, I know…but I couldn’t resist, really!

Here are the directions for these (found on Beantown Baker’s food blog):

* 1 bag Oreos (crushed either by food processor or in a Ziploc with a rolling pin)
* 14 oz. condensed milk
* Chocolate candy melts or almond bark

Mix the oreos and condensed milk together, and roll into small balls…I used a half teaspoon measurement as guidance for this…then freeze the oreo balls (used wax paper b/t layers of balls to prevent sticking).

Melt the chocolate in a glass or plastic bowl according to the packages instructions. Make sure the bowl has NO WATER in it because that will mess up the chocolate’s texture, making it very difficult to work with. Then, dip in melted white chocolate or dark chocolate (to make the chocolate more shiny, I sprayed a tiny bit of veggie oil in the bowl with the chocolate).

I used a mold for this for pretty purposes…so for a mold, you “paint” the shell of the mold with chocolate first, freeze for like a minute or so, then take out the mold, put the ball in the mold, then pour in chocolate to fill the rest of the truffle mold and allow to set in the freezer for another 2 minutes, and then they pop out!

If you want to dip instead, just dip the balls in chocolate with a toothpick and allow them to cool on parchment (with the toothpick taken out).

For writing, I used a plastic cake decorator bag and microwaved the chocolate in the bag at 30 sec intervals, squeezing the chocolate around the bag after every interval, on the defrost setting until smooth and melted. Then snip a small corner off and write. Be careful though…the bag can be hot!

Idea #3: Cupcake Pops

While I haven’t made these myself (yet), they have become quite known to the food bloggers out there, and I think I’m going to attempt these for the holidays. I just love this idea, made famous by Bakerella.

Image source

Aren’t they just ADORABLE?

Here are the instructions for these beauties. Linky.

Are any of you brides thinking about giving some kitchen love to your wedding favors?