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.
