Weddingbee Blog

If you think waaaaay back into the early days of my time on Weddingbee, you might remember the adorable shortbread buttons Mr E and I were planning on making for our favors. Well, please dont hate us, but we changed our minds. I know, how unusual for me. But stick around, because, as hard as it is to compete with buttons, I think you are going to love our “Chocolate Pudding for Two” favor just as much!

It was Mr E who came up with the idea.

We were eating dessert one night and I was worrying about making a kazillion pieces of shortbread. The dessert we were eating at the time was one I have seen versions of floating around on the web, so some of you might already be familiar with it: a super-duper easy microwave chocolate pudding. I probably should feel guilty to admit that Mr E and I indulge in this pudding at least three times a week…but I don’t. It is just too good to feel guilt over! Anyway, Mr E sat there listening to me worrying and then he came up with the thought of layering the dry ingredients of the pudding in a jar and doing it up all pretty like I was planning on doing with the buttons anyway. Brilliant! And, it’s also much easier than churning out perfect shortbread.

This week we tackled (and conquered) the task of assembling those pudding favors and despite making a huge mess and getting sick of the smell of chocolate, I think they turned out pretty good. A few months ago I ordered 50 small jars from a wholesaler. That was the most expensive part of this project, but even so they were a reasonable price. Then we layered 4 tbsp flour, 2 tbsp cocoa, 4 tbsp sugar, and 3 tbsp chocolate chips (in that order) in each jar, slightly flattening each layer with a spoon as we went.

The work station

Thankfully Mr E had already cut out all the fabric circles we needed with pinking shears for the tops of the jars. We also punched hearts out of coloured cardstock and stamped them with “thank you,” and then I wrote out by hand the pudding instructions for our guests on separate tags. Yes, that took forever. But my printer was being mean so our guests will just have to live with handwriting. In case you want to know, here is what I wrote:

Chocolate Pudding for Two

Mix the contents of the jar in a microwaveable bowl.

In a separate bowl, lightly beat an egg.

Then add 3 tbsp oil, 3 tbsp milk, and 1 tsp vanilla.

Add wet ingredients to dry and mix well. Microwave 3 mins.

Tastes best shared with someone you love and served

with ice cream and chocolate sauce.

Enjoy!

Finally, we secured each fabric circle over a lid with a rubber band, and tied the labels on with ribbon. All done!

Mr E tackling the fabric circles

I definitely underestimated the time and effort that this project would take, but I’m really pleased with how the favors turned out. It is definitely “us,” seeing how we eat that pudding all the time, and I got to make a twist on the idea of a favor in a jar after all. I do hope that someone one day does do shortbread buttons for favors, though! They’re just too cute to slip by.

Are you as smitten as I am with favors in jars?

*All photos taken by either myself or Mr E