Creating Homemade Favors For Weddings

Planning a wedding is fun when it comes to creating homemade favors for weddings. By designing and making your own, you can save money and give your guests a memorable little something that they will say is "you".

Just make sure to give yourself plenty of time to decide on what you want to create and then plenty of time to create it. You can get the non-perishable portions of the favors done months in advance and just add the edible portion or plant or flower in time for the wedding.

Wedding cookie favors are fun to bake for your guests. Here is another wonderful cookie recipe! Homemade favors for weddings do not have to be made from scratch. Take some help from the Pillsbury dough boy.

The cookies above are shamrock cookies made by Pillsbury for a St. Patrick's Day or springtime wedding. They are pre-sliced and are ready to bake. Pillsbury also has pre-decorated cookies for Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day and the 4th of July.

Another great thing to make is homemade chocolate!

To chocaholics, homemade wedding chocolate favors are the perfect gift for wedding guests. I am including several recipes for delicious favors including chocolate. The first is a recipe for coating 8" pretzel sticks with chocolate. Put two or three of these in a plastic bag. Tie with a pretty ribbon with a tag that gives the name of the bride and groom and you have a perfect favor for your guests.

Chocolate Dipped Pretzels

You will need:

2 1/2 packages (8 ounces each) of semisweet chocolate squares

12 (8" long) baked pretzel sticks

You can serve these coated with chocolate alone or you can add toppings such as chopped toasted nuts, sprinkles, coconut flakes, mini-peanut butter pieces.

Break the pieces of chocolate into individual squares and place in either a large glass bowl or a 4 cup glass measuring cup. Cover with waxed paper and place in microwave. Cook on high for 2 to 3 minutes, until almost melted, stirring occasionally until smooth.

Place each topping you will use on a sheet of waxed paper. Hold 1 pretzel stick at a time over the melted chocolate and spoon chocolate over pretzel, coating it but leave about 2" uncoated at the top of the pretzel. Immediately sprinkle coated pretzel with your choice of toppings. Carefully place coated stick in a pie plate, leaning the uncoated top part on the edge of the plate. Refrigerate them for 15 minutes to set the coating.

Now apply a second coating of melted chocolate and topping to each pretzel, repeating the above directions. Refrigerate for another 15 minutes to set the coating.

Store pretzel sticks in a tightly covered container with waxed paper between layers at room temperature for up to 2 weeks. Yum!

Homemade Wedding Chocolate Favors

Wilton makes an assortment of candy-making molds and chocolates for you to make great favors. They are available in craft stores like Michael's. That is where I bought mine. Choose the mold you want for your favors. They have a lot of hearts, bride and grooms, teddy bears, lollipop molds, etc.

If you just want plain chocolates, that is fine, just buy a mold in the shape you want. Choose the colors of chocolate that you want from the great selection that Wilton has. They are called candy melts.

Do not grease the molds. Melt candy melts in the microwave per directions on package. Pour into molds. If you are using lollipop molds, put the sticks in the molds. Make sure you rotate the sticks to cover with candy so they will stay in place. Refrigerate the molds until the candy is hard. Then tap them out of the molds. Put a few in each guest bag and tie.

Martha Stewart has some beautiful new bags and boxes for wedding favors in her collection of craft supplies at Michael's. I have used them and they are beautiful and really nice to use.

Wedding favor cookies are easy to make and your guests will enjoy eating them. Let them know that you made them yourself. Have a tag printed with the name of the cookie and be sure it says "Homemade By _____________"

Thumbprint Cookies

The following recipe makes pretty wedding favor cookies with three different kinds of fruit preserves for a colorful and flavorful cookie.

You can either put together your favorite sugar cookie recipe or to save time, buy a roll of cookie dough already made in the dairy section of your supermarket. This is what I did today when I took the photos.

You will need:

Baking parchment paper and baking sheets

1 roll of sugar cookie dough or a batch of your favorite sugar cookie dough

3 different flavors of fruit preserves or jams

Place a piece of parchment on a cookie sheet.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pinch off balls of cookie dough, about one inch around. Roll into a nice looking ball and place on cookie sheet parchment. Then roll two more balls and put all three together in a triangle so they are touching. This triangle is one cookie.

Make more cookies and place them at least one inch apart from the other wedding favor cookies on the parchment.

Using the back of a wooden spoon, slightly flatten each triangle. Using the handle of a wooden spoon, poke a hole into the middle of each flattened ball. Do not go all the way through to the parchment.

Place about 1/8 teaspoon of each fruit preserve in the three holes in the triangle wedding favor cookie. If you use three different colors, it looks really pretty. I used strawberry, apricot, and peach. The peach looks yellow so they came out looking very colorful.

Bake them for about 20 minutes, until the edges are golden brown. Depending on how your oven is set, you may want to check them at 15 minutes so they don't get too dark.

Let them cool on the parchment paper.

Keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week with parchment paper between layers.

So this means you can bake these a week before the wedding and store them. Then a day or two before the wedding, put in the decorative cookie bag and seal so they are fresh for your guests.

Wedding cookie favors for your guests are fun to make and even more fun for them to eat. Sweet treats are always appreciated and wanted. Get a crew together and get baking!

I am including some of my favorite cookie recipes for you to try. Or maybe you and your groom to be have a favorite cookie. Use that one for your wedding cookie favors. Pack them in a glassine or plastic bag with a pretty ribbon and your names on a tag and you have delicious gifts for your guests.

Wonderful Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

1 1/2 cups sifted flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup (2 sticks) butter (I use real butter for these)

2 eggs

1 cup brown sugar (packed)

1 cup white sugar

2 tsp vanilla

3 cups rolled oats

1 cup raisins

In separate bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside.

In large bowl, beat softened butter, eggs, sugars and vanilla until smooth and creamy. Then add flour mixture and beat until smooth.

Add oats and raisins. Shape into rolls and wrap in wax paper. Chill for a few hours in fridge.

When chilled, slice into 1/2" to 1" thick slices. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until lightly browned.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

2 cups butter

2 teaspoons baking soda

5 cups oatmeal, blended in a blender to a fine powder

2 cups brown sugar

1 8 ounce grated Hershey bar

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons vanilla

4 cups flour

2 cups sugar

24 ounces chocolate chips

1 teaspoon salt

4 eggs

3 cups chopped nuts

Cream the butter and both sugars together. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth.

Mix in the flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.
Add chocolate chips, Hershey bar, and nuts. Roll mixture into 1" balls. Place 2" apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. This recipe makes 112 cookies.

Before baking, put a stick into the rounded cookie dough on the baking sheet for a cookie on a stick favor. Sticks can be purchased at craft stores and look like lollipop sticks or popsicle sticks.

Want something simple, yet pleasing for your guests? Try bags of candy favors. Set up a self-serve sweet treats table, sort of like an old-fashioned sweet shoppe. Frame a pretty sign that says, "Please fill your bag."

Provide some pretty candy bags or boxes so your guests can serve themselves from a large assortment of delicious candies. Place the candies in various glass containers. The containers should be in a variety of sizes and shapes to make the display more interesting.

If the candies are not wrapped, be sure to include some tongs or a scoop to serve the candy so the guests do not actually put their hands inside the jars. This is strictly for sanitary reasons. Germs are real and, believe it or not, some folks do not wash their hands after using the bathroom. On that happy note, it is better to use wrapped candy for your wedding favors.

There are so many varieties of sweets to include for your guests to take home with them. You can include all of your favorite candies.

For example, use chewy candies, salt water taffy, hard candy, Christmas ribbon candy, candy sticks, candy canes, chocolates, candy-coated almonds, licorice whips, toffee, nougats, caramels, lollipops, chocolate cremes, chocolate covered nuts, and the list goes on....All of those yummy buy them by the pound Brach's sampler candies would work really well for this idea. Hard candy sticks in a variety of flavors are also great as well as chewing gum.

If you choose any sweets that have nuts, be sure to mark the jars with the specific type of nuts inside. Some people have nut allergies so this is very important.

You may want to include some sugar-free candies as well, especially if you are aware that some of your guests are diabetic. Be sure to label the jars as "sugar-free" so those who cannot have sugar will know.

Mini Valentine hearts of chocolate also make great candy favors for your guests if you are having a February wedding. There are many brands who make these small Valentines. They have between four and eight chocolates in them, depending on the size of the heart.

A bouquet of lollipop flowers can be found at dollar and discount stores. I found the bouquet below at Dollar Tree. These can also be found in candy stores, but for a lot more money than $1. The trick is to do a lot of shopping around. When you see a bargain, be prepared to buy in bulk to cover all of your guests.