Kitchen-Witchy Marshmallow Kebab Favors

Wandering around Niagara-on-the-Lake the other day (beautiful!), hubby and I came across a charming version of a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Of course, the windows were filled with mesmerizing treats, including dipped apples that most brides would kill to serve at their autumn-themed weddings.

As beautiful as they are, those beautifully-rendered caramel or chocolate-dipped apples make for a pricey favor. Expect to pay $11 to $16, not including shipping, embellishments or favor tags. (Some brides do — they're just that cool. The apples, I mean. Well ... the brides, too).



But then, as I somehow jerked away my eyes from the rows of dark chocolate and toffee-dribbled apples, I saw a seriously more affordable treat below: chocolate-covered marshmallows on a sheesh kebab stick. Now, research clearly demanded that we buy one and put it through its paces. So we did.

It was delicious. And way cheaper than the caramel apples: $3.




And cute!

It was also more decadent than you might imagine, especially if your only experience with marshmallows with the kind we all torch around campfires in hopes of making them taste a little less like sugar-dusted boot leather. No, these were homemade marshmallows, and there really are no words to describe their tender, creamy texture.

 

Now, many (most?) of us were not born to tackle candy-making in the kitchen, which involves distinguishing "firm ball" from "soft crack," and probably got some people burned at the stake in less tolerant times. But if you can master this basic making-a-sugar syrup thang (or handling a candy thermometer), you're sure to find making marshmallows a snap. And if you can do that, you can make your own truly amazing chocolate-dipped-marshmallows-on-a-stick for pennies on the dollar.

You can obviously personalize these favors by dipping them in white chocolate instead, colored or not, or adding any of the usual gorgeous toppings to the chocolate: crushed toffee, toasted coconut, pecans, sugar stars, macadamia nuts, drizzled chocolate in contrasting colors, and so on.

But you can also tweak the marshmallows themselves to your heart's content, coloring and flavoring your way to some really unique and personalized treats. Marshmallows are easily tinted with standard food coloring, and you can flavor them with essential oils (but go easy on them), exotic fruit purées (freeze fruit first for best results; makes a smoother purée), crushed hard candies or instant coffee.

WWMD — what would Martha do? I'm thinking ginger or lavender. Or a smoky chocolate-cinnamon. Or passionfruit purée, or cherry or espresso, or mixtures of several on one stick ...

(Oh, and here's a tip: try freezing your marshmallow creations for about 15 minutes before you dip them in chocolate, so they don't get all melty.)

One great thing: this is the kind of favor you don't have to make the night before the big event. The finished products store beautifully, as long as you have a cool, dark place to tuck them — not the fridge or freezer, though. Not to mention, they're cheap ... and sure to get that buzz we all want!

Would you try this? What flavors would you dream up?

Tags: homemade wedding favors, DIY wedding favors, wedding favor ideas

Homestyle Cookie and Cake Favors, Or Why I Love Gift Stores

I have a favor business, which has led to a sort-of newfound interest in gift shops. Sure, basically, they're a purgatory where you do your time while you're waiting for your ever-tardy BFF to finally join you for lunch. But for me, these days, they are full of DISCOVERY. Because gift shops have wedding favors that aren't marketed that way, so you don't see them online.

Consequently, I now love museum shops, and winery shops, and all that ilk. I inch through the aisles and I squeal, in serial. "OhHowCuteIsThis?" And then again: "HowCuteIsThis?", emphasizing the last word so that anyone forced to listen doesn't think they're stuck in some kind of Groundhog Day alternative universe.

So the other day, when I got dragged along a family recent trip, I perked up considerably when we neared the gift shop. And of course they had all kinds of HowCuteIsThis? things. Granted, they were aimed at the kiddies, so they had more dinosaur motifs then you might usually find in a bridal shop. But! They were totally adaptable.

Let's start with the cookies-in-a-bag gifts. Okay, pigs, frogs and dinosaurs might not be the perfect fit for your "One Night in Morocco" theme. But this is a cute idea for any laid-back, garden-y or bohemian chic type of wedding.

What really gets me with gift shop finds is the presentation. I mean, you can find cookies-in-a-bag as premade wedding favors ... and yes, we sell them ... but for the bride who likes to roll up her sleeves, Marth out and make something totally unique, this is hot, yet not too hard.

You can find any kind of cookie cutter online ... anything at all. Scotty dogs, dragonflies, labradors, autumn leaves, penguins, power tools, bowling pins, figure skaters, hippos, palm trees. And any diehard DIY-er can whip up a personalized label for the ages, complete with custom love story and her personal monogram or logo.

Plus, you can buy gorgeous flat-bottomed gift sacks in bulk for next to nothing. (Check out NashvilleWraps for example, with lots of solids, cute ginghams, and adorable graphic patterns. ) Try trimming the top with scalloped scissors, folding it over, punching two holes and threading the the whole thing closed with some sumptuous Midori ribbon (don't forget to add the cookie cutter). Of course, don't dump the cookie mix directly in the gift bag — a smaller tied-off cello bag's a good choice.

Okay, what about these cakes-in-a-pot? Adorable, right? Just two problems: the packaging's not very wedding-y, and the price is about $10 each — kind of stiff for favors.

No worries, you can do this, and make it eminently more personal. Why not adapt a beloved family recipe?

All you need are smallish terra cotta pots (no holes in the bottom, please) you can get from any garden or craft store, a recipe, some trick-it-out accents, and a tiny wooden spoon, for the "ahh" factor.

Terra cotta pots are pretty amazing, because you can cook things right in them ... even in the microwave. Back in the dark ages, they occasionally contained lead, but this is pretty rare now. Still, if you want to be 110% sure, just buy a $13 lead testing kit from a hardware store (or even on ebay). Gee, you might say, I never expected to test my wedding favors for lead, but this little doohickey could save you $6 per favor and give you total peace of mind.

Then, you need a recipe that only requires the user to just add water. Not eggs. Not oil. Not butter, heaven forfend. The magic in the presention here is that the recipient just adds a little water, stirs it all up with the included little wooden spoon, tosses the whole thing in the microwave, nukes two minutes (roughly), and voila! Hot cake! Plus, no dishes! You don't want them lugging out their mixing bowls and cluttering up the kitchen. That's a drag.

For inspiration, check out the zillions of "cake in a jar" recipes on the web. But keep in mind, you don't want to cheat like they do, and use must-refrigerate ingredients like butter.

So draw on all those bizarre shelf-stable ingredients you can legally buy as a consumer. Lean on powdered milk, powdered eggs, and (ninja trick!) pudding mix. You can buy these things in alarmingly large boxes in places like Costco.

Experiment, and trust me, you will devise a tasty cake recipe you can nuke in a terra cotta pot. You can even go one further, and include an instant, just-add-water cake glaze. Just fill a small bag with powdered sugar and any flavoring of your choice (powdered drinks are great for this: think lemon, tangerine, black cherry).

Oh, and where to get the miniature wooden spoons? Try craft stores, or eBay — right now someone's selling 25 for $1.75.

Tags: cookie favors, cake favors, DIY wedding favors