Joan’s Corner

The trend towards do it yourself wedding favors has been growing for years, but it’s had a big surge in this challenging economy. These days, brides often have more time than money to budget towards their wedding favors. There’s a big upside to this! Handmade favors have more personality and charm than the off-the-rack favor you see everywhere else. There’s no better way to express your love and appreciation for your wedding guests than to make something special just for them.

One of our favorite homemade wedding favors is the gift of chocolate. Delicious, high quality chocolate melts are readily available in local craft stores or online. We did a quick search for candy molds on Amazon and found dozens of options that would be perfect for party favors.

Available molds included molds with monograms etched into them, complex chocolate boxes and simple event theme shapes like bells and flowers. We chose a large daisy mold to demonstrate how even a novice candy maker could create a tasty and festive chocolate lollipop favor.

We used Merckens Coatings for our daisy. We selected Coco Dark for the center and a Yellow Coating for the petals. The chocolate came with easy-to-follow instructions for melting. The most important tip we can pass along from our experience here is to not be fooled by how “unmelted” the coatings may look if you’re melting them in a microwave. We stirred them frequently and were surprised at how quickly they were ready after stirring.

To keep things simple, we decided to create a center of the dark chocolate and fill in the petals completely with the yellow chocolate.  A more adventurous candy maker could paint the mold with yellow coating and then fill in with the darker chocolate.  We took the easier route.  We set out our molds and filled the centers first with the dark chocolate.

After allowing the center to fully harden and cleaning up any drips we got outside of the center, we filled the outside of the mold with the yellow coating, following the same melting instructions.  When we filled the petals with the coating, we tapped the mold against our work surface to coax out any air bubbles that remained.  We placed a lollipop stick into the groove provided in the mold, and allowed the entire pop time to harden.  Once they had completely hardened, they lifted easily from the mold.

We personalized our finished product with our Daisy Favor Ribbon.  We’re showing it here placed on a bread plate. Cellophane sleeves are available at candy supply stores, and we would suggest that you place a lollipop in one for easier transport for your guests.

From beginning to end, this project took about 45 minutes to make 12 daisies.   We had three molds to make the process move along more quickly.  Tips we’ll pass along:

• If your molds are not flat, try to flatten them before you fill them.  Even the slightest lift in the mold may cause a spill over outside of the mold lines.
• Pick a cooler weather day if you can, the cooler the temperature, the quicker the coatings will set.
• Store your finished items in a cool place in a sealed container out of sunlight.  Keep cool in mind when transporting as well.  Even half an hour in a hot trunk would damage your hard work.