Blueberry Honey & Pumpkin Maple Soap Cake

I'll post the pictures first and then the recipe at the bottom.

 

This is the Pumpkin Soap Recipe from last year with the addition of some Blueberry Honey and of course it looks a little different too. I made a separate non pumpkin batch of soap for the piping and the blueberries are made with Melt & Pour soap.

 

For the piping, should give you about 1 pound of soap:

113 grams Coconut Oil

100 grams Palm Oil

25 grams Cocoa Butter

124 grams Olive Oil

 

52 grams Sodium Hydroxide

134 grams Distilled Water

 

Optional: Titanium Dioxide for whitening

 

Get these oils and your sodium hydroxide solution ready. You will want to mix this soap up before you start mixing the Pumpkin Soap. While the solution is cooling and you are slowly melting the hard oils you can start working on the Pumpkin Soap.

 

Pumpkin Soap Recipe about 3 pounds of soap:

340 grams Coconut Oil

298 grams Palm Oil

75 grams Cocoa Butter

370 grams Olive Oil

 

156 grams Sodium Hydroxide

340 grams Distilled Water

 

50 grams canned Pumpkin

20 grams Cream

2 tbsp. Blueberry Honey

 

Optional: Whatever fragrance you would like to add and any decorations, you really don't need the piping or the melt & pour blueberries if you're going for a traditional bar.

 

Mix the Pumpkin and Cream together and set aside. Measure out the honey later when you need it.

 

Get the Sodium Hydroxide solution ready, weigh out the oils and slowly melt the solids. I don't pay too much attention to temperatures but honey is a heater so try and stay below 90.

 

The smaller  (non pumpkin) batch should be cooled and ready first. So mix that first, add the olive oil to the other oils if you haven't already, then the lye solution and Titanium Dioxide. Blend to a medium to heavy trace and then just leave it in the pot where it will continue to thicken.

 

When the lye solution and the oils for your Pumpkin soap have cooled do the same. Add the olive oils to the other oils if you haven't already and then add the lye solution. Start to blend the oils and lye solution and then add the pumpkin/cream. Once you have reached a thin trace add the honey and fragrance. I used 2 tsp each of Pumpkin Crunch Cake & Maple fragrance oils.  Blend a little more to incorporate the honey and fragrance. I started filling my molds at a medium trace and it had thickened up quite a bit by the time I was finished.

 

OK now back to the soap frosting, it still wasn't thick enough to pipe once I had poured the pumpkin soap.  I had to wait for about an hour, which was OK because the pumpkin soap got to firm up a little.

Once it was thick enough I filled my piping bag and started piping not knowing if I had too much or not enough. With the amount of piping I did I had a very small amount left over, if I wasn't so wrung out at that point I could have kept adding more and used it up but I was wanting to get the berries on. In the picture at the top of the post there are a few soaps with only one berry but after I took that photo I went back added another berry to those soaps, so each soap cake and soap cupcake have two berries. The last thing I did was add some cosmetic glitter and spray the soaps with rubbing alcohol.

 

Last year I poured this soap into a loaf mold and I remember it got really hot, I think I might have put it in the fridge for a while. This soap gelled, I could see it even with the piping and I did get a small amount of ash on the cakes which steamed off easily. Its still curing but I'm really happy with it!

Thanks for stopping by, any questions let me know!

 

 

 



Gummy Bear Candles & A Soap

Here is my first attempt at layering coloured wax and adding embeds to candles. I made some little soy wax gummy bears in a few colours, you want all  of the colours different from the colour of the top layer. So below are the wax bears, there are two shades of green, I used the darker green, orange and yellow.

For the colour, I added some coloured wax beads in various colours plus some soy wax candle bits ( I save my candle scraps) to the soy wax flakes, I was kind of limited in my colour choices to what I had on hand. So in my container I had the wax flakes, some  of the coloured beads and  some grated scraps, I melted them all together in the microwave.

Each colour for pouring was melted in a separate container and once the wax was melted I added fragrance, each layer has a different scent. You can melt the layers for the candles one at a time because you have to wait for the poured layer to turn opaque before pouring the next layer. I didn't worry about temperature because soy wax has such a low melting point. I left the wicks long and positioned them with pencils (see this post).

Now for adding the wax embeds, in this case the Gummy Bears, from what I have read it is recommended to wait until the top layer had just about hardened up and then to set them with a gentle little push. I chickened out and let the wax harden as if I wasn't adding any embeds, then I melted the top a little with my hair dryer (like you would do if you were smoothing out the top) and set the bears into the melted wax. Don't melt too deep and don't hold they dryer to close, the wax could splatter. One thing I would do differently is trim the wick before melting the top. The wicks I use have a wax coating and that wax can melt and get on the coloured wax.

These were fun to make, the jars came in a pack of 4 and I made all 4 at once. I messed up on the amounts a bit, that's why the bottom layer is the thickest :)

The embed molds can be used for soap too!

Thanks for stopping by!

Gummy Bear Candles

Here is my first attempt and layering coloured wax and adding embeds to candles. I made some little soy wax gummy bears in a few colours, you want all  of the colours different from the colour of the top layer. So below are the wax bears, there are two shades of green, I used the darker green, orange and yellow.

For the colour, I melted some scented wax beads in various colours plus some soy wax candle bits ( I save by candle scraps), I was kind of limited in my colour choices to what I had on hand.

Each colour for pouring was melted in a separate container and once the wax was melted I added fragrance, each layer has a different scent. You can melt the layers for the candles one at a time because you have to wait for the poured layer to turn opaque before pouring the next layer. I didn't worry about temperature because soy wax has such a low melting point. I left the wicks long and positioned them with pencils (see this post).

Now for adding the wax embeds, in this case the Gummy Bears, from what I have read it is recommended to wait until the top layer had just about hardened up and then to set them with a gentle little push. I chickened out and let the wax harden as if I wasn't adding any embeds, then I melted the top a little with my hair dryer (like you would do if you were smoothing out the top) and sets the bears into the melted wax. Don't melt too deep and don't hold they dryer to close, the wax could splatter. One thing I would do differently is trim the wick before melting the top. The wicks I use have a wax coating and that wax can melt and get on the coloured wax.

These were fun to make, the jars came in a pack of 4 and I made all 4 at once. I messed up on the amounts a bit, that's why the bottom layer is the thickest :)

The embed molds can be used for soap too!