Bat Mitzvah Favors, Messy And Full of Math.

This is a guest post by my very good friend Ellina who is celebrating her daughter's Bat Mitzvah in a few weeks.

In a strange and unexpected moment of creative inspiration (channeling my inner Martha Stewart, which I didn't know I could!), I decided to make chocolate-covered Oreos as favors for my daughter's Bat Mitzvah party, where we will have 70 kids in attendance. Some strong math should really have been involved in my decision, but I usually shy away from having to calculate anything, so I thought I'd "be creative" and "enjoy the process." What is there to do - buy a few packs of Oreos, dip them in chocolate, use food coloring spray and stencil to "Mazel Tov" on each, pack them in bags of 3, and here we go - 70 delicious and festive favors.

I was told that there is a person who charges $2 per cookie when she does this, and I thought it was an exorbitant price. I needed 70 x 3 = 210 of those and wasn't ready to pay $420 for that. 

Preparing the project, I created a list of supplies:

• I have three molding trays that make 6 Oreos each, so I can make 18 at a time
• I have three different decorative stencils -- one says "Bat Mitzvah", one says "Mazel Tov!", and one is a Star of David -- every favor will get three cookies, one of each design
• There are 36 Double-Stuf Oreos in one package
• A package of chocolate melt wafers is 14 oz.
• A can of pearl white food coloring spray (that is used to spray the stencil design onto each cookie) is 15 oz.
• Each set of 3 cookies will go into a little cellophane baggie, tied with a piece of decorative ribbon (about 8" of ribbon per baggie)
• Ribbon comes in rolls of 9 feet
• Baggies come in packs of 100 (so I will need only one pack -- this one is easy!!)
• Each baggie will have a piece of cardstock stuffed into it, as "decorative backing" for the cookies.
• Cardstock comes in sheets of 12" x 12"
• Each baggie will need a 4" x 4" piece of colored cardstock
• I want to alternate lavender and light blue cardstock (trying to stick to the party's color scheme of lavender, white, and light blue)

Just in time, the AC Moore store was having a sale on chocolate melt wafers (normally 2.49/bag, sale price of 1.99/bag), so I stocked up, got 12 bags. The first time. Little did I know that I will have to go back two more times, for wafers and other ingredients... 16 bags of wafers total.

Got 6 spray bottles of white food coloring -- with the way my spraying was going, I knew I'd need a few!  Got 4 more during a later trip. 

Double-Stuf Oreos were also on sale (normally 3.69/box, sale price of 2.99/box), I got 7 boxes and then went back for another 4 (36 cookies in each, I needed to make a total of 210, but underestimated the amount of broken cookies, eat-while-I-work cookies, cat-stole-and-dropped-down-off-table-to-share-with-dog cookies, and family-sneaking-finished-product-late-at-night cookies). 

Found cute ribbon for only $1 per roll (9 feet each), but all I could find was 3 rolls (will not be enough, as I need 8" per baggie, and need to make 70 baggies, which would mean almost 6 full rolls). Tried to find 3 additional rolls later that would be the same, scared away fellow shoppers as I frantically clawed my way through the $1 ribbon bin -- alas, to no avail. Will end up with two types of ribbons closing up the baggies. Keep reminding myself that kids don't care.

Then, I planned the actual steps and slowly perfected them through trial-and-error:

• Melt chocolate wafers (three 30-second intervals in the microwave)
•  Pour a bit of the chocolate melt into one cookie mold slot

- 

• Put Oreo into cookie mold, and push down to get the chocolate to come up around the sides
•  Pour a bit more chocolate over the top, and spread to cover up the cookie
•  Tap the bottom of the mold a few times to get air bubbles out, and to ensure the chocolate has spread evenly around/over the cookie
•  Repeat for remaining 5 cookies in the mold
•  Put into freezer for 15 minutes

• Repeat with remaining two mold trays, ending up with 18 cookies 
• Pop out cookies, take a stencil (one of the three choices), place over cookie, spray with food coloring

• Put 18 cookies into large ziplock bag, make bag airtight by sucking all air out with a straw
• Store bag in kitchen cabinet
• Repeat while tolerating rolling-eye expression from daughter and husband
• Curse Martha Stewart. 

Now, you are probably starting to wonder what got me thinking that this could be fun. Well, so did I, but this was already too late into the adventure. The kitchen was an ugly mess. Every few hours I was going into sugar-induced shock from breathing cheap candy wafer fumes, and food coloring spray fumes. I then run to the fridge, took pickles out of a jar and ate them to decrease the sugar overload. Ate them quickly, to balance out the sugar.  At that point it is important to recognize that the assembly of the favors was still to come....

Favor Assembly Steps:

• Take pre-cut piece of cardstock, put into cellophane baggie
• Put three cookies (one with each design) into baggie, with cardstock as background
• Take pre-cut pieces of ribbon
• Tie ribbon into knot
• Repeat

   

The final result:

Overall time investment: 35 hours so far.  

Total money spent: about $110 .
Chocolate consumed: 1 pound+

59 done, 11 to go... I've somehow miscalculated my sets of 18, so I now have too many Magen Davids, 7 Bat Mitzvahs (need 11), and no Mazel Tovs at all... Bought one more box of Double-Stuf Oreos...

Honestly, when this is done, I don't think I'll be able to be anywhere near another Oreo for what is likely to be years... :-)

Plan on bringing the not-yet-assembled pieces to a Memorial Weekend retreat to get the extended family help me put it together. Need to feed them ice cream before to prevent any pieces being eaten.

Exhaustion and excitement are up.

Time to the party: 2 weeks
Next on my list: video montage and table centerpieces.

From TheMathMom:  Ellina -  I am sure these elaborate multi-week home preparations make the anticipation even more special and the whole event much more personal and memorable.