No Soap, Just Candles and Cake

#christmascandles  #christmasbaking #makinghomemadegifts #poundcake

Friday, December 12, 2014

So Christmas isn't creeping up slowly anymore; it's coming on like a fast freight train, and both Alison and I are scrambling to finish all the various and assorted projects on our (too long lists).

I had a cake to make, and Alison worked on Christmas candles.  While we were working we printed labels, wrapped soap, and ordered soap making materials.  Yes, we can multi-task.  

It's not soap making but the following pictures will show you a little of what we did.

These are the ingredients for a decadent almond/lemon pound cake I made. Alison mentions the recipe in her recent blog entry, too.  Can you tell we love it?  

The recipe is from a co-worker's wife in my previous job.  She makes tons of these in loaf size at Christmas each year, and when she gave me one last year, I and tasted it and honestly drooled.  It is SO good that I've tossed my traditional Whipped Cream pound cake for this one. Really, it's that good.

I mixed all the ingredients (butter, margarine, cream cheese, cake flour, sugar, eggs, almond flavor) and put them in a cold oven, set it at 300 degrees and let it rip for 1-3/4 hours.

This is how it looked in the oven.....baking away, smelling so good.

Out of the oven, picture perfect!

After it cooled a bit I whipped up some confectioners sugar, milk and lemon flavoring

and drizzled it over the top.  The lemon flavor mixed with the almond pound cake is 

part of what makes this one so good.

Now on to the candle making...

First thing was to melt old wax out of some nice containers. We shop thrift stores and yard sales and find beautiful "used" candles and containers for practically nothing.  Once we clean them and pour new wax into them they look brand new again.  

We used Sugared Spruce fragrance oil from +Rustic Escentuals.  We have made soap using this scent and it smells great, but it has a lot of vanilla which turns the soap dark.  In candles it won't make a difference since we are coloring them green.

The scent is described as follows:  Has notes of stately Blue Spruce, earthen moss, warm cedar wood, and balsam wood rounded out with a base of vanilla and caramel butter with sweet berry hints, cassis, and sugar crystals.

                                            

We used two different greens, mainly because one of them wasn't Christmasy enough.

 We started out dropping the color flakes into the melted wax a few at a time, checking the depth of the color as we go.

We dripped bits of wax on a piece of paper to see how the color changed each time we added the color flakes.

Not sure if you can tell the progression, but the drops of wax got progressively darker as we added more color flakes.  We finally got what we wanted.  The one right in the middle is the final color.

This is a quick photo montage of us mixing in the fragrance oil.

After letting the wax cool just a bit, it was ready to pour.  We keep our candle holders in a bath of warm water.  We find that the wax hardens more evenly and the candles look better if we don't pour the hot wax into a cold container.

We hot glued the wicks into place, then used tape to keep the straight while

the candles cooled and hardened.  Aren't these containers pretty?

We poured very carefully

trying to avoid spillage (as much as possible).

And we ended up with several very pretty, amazing-smelling candles.

Pictured above are some of the finished candles after they've had time to cool and harden.

We are so excited to be able to give gifts like these!

Merry Christmas!

Still Creating, but not Soap Today

Today's blog is not at all about soap; it's about recipes.  I hope you don't mind!

#Christmasgoodies  #Funtimebakingwithmom


Monday, December 16, 2014

I (Alison) took a day away from the Soap Lily kitchen today to spend time baking with my mom. We did some amazing and delicious work today. Most of this will go to work with my husband, and some will go to work with my dad.  We got busy and created enough variety to tickle as many taste buds as possible. It isn't soap, but I thought I would share it with you anyway.



Orange Balls - my favorite, well okay, one of them.  It canNOT be Christmastime without at least one batch of these.  But I just realized that we didn't even take 1 picture of them.  DARN!  Trust me.  These are so good!

1 box Vanilla wafers - crushed (my Ninja works like a charm!)
stick margarine - melted (I use sweet cream butter)
6 oz frozen OJ concentrate
1 box confectioners sugar
coconut

Combine first 4 ingredients and stir until well combined.  Roll into balls, then roll the balls in coconut.  I like to store them in the refrigerator for a short while to give them time to harden up just a bit.


Pound Cake:  My husband's absolute favorite.

And this is the most delicious recipe EVER! The recipe was given to Kathy and me as a gift from a friend we worked with in our previous life (Before Soap Lily).  It is his wife's recipe, and I think she guards it pretty closely, so I'll be respectful and not share it. I will say, though, that it has 8 oz of cream cheese and 6 eggs!  Kathy has already made one for a party she attended, and she wrote about it in the blog, too.

Greased and floured 3 loaf pans

That piece of paper in the upper right-hand portion of the photo is my recipe.  See how wrinkled and rumpled it is?  It is definitely a much used recipe. 

Batter is ready to go into the oven.

And this is the final view with a nice layer of glaze.  My husband took 2 to work, and my dad took 1. And my dear hubby has already requested that I make one just for him.  (While I was writing this, my dad called, so I asked him how everyone liked the cake.  He forgot to take it to work!  I think that subconsciously he wanted it for himself.  It is THAT good!) 

Bourbon Balls - my Christmas tradition treat.  I started making these several years ago just for fun, and now must make them every year.  Sometimes people will call me and specifically request them.

Usually I use Jim Beam brand bourbon, but this year my aunt had a bottle she wasn't going to use, so rather than spend more money on another bottle, I used her Evan Williams Kentucky Straight Bourbon.

I'm sure I found this recipe on the Internet somewhere, and I really HATE not to give credit where credit is due, but it has been several years and I honestly cannot remember where I found it. If  I come across it, I will edit the blog.

For the chocolate, I use Bakers AND Ghirardelli - equal parts of semi-sweet and un-sweet of each brand.  I am also usually a bit heavy on the chocolate and end up using more than the recipe states.  Be prepared and have plenty of chocolate on hand.  If you have four packages total (1 semi-sweet Bakers, 1 un-sweet Bakers, 1 semi-sweet Ghirardelli, and 1 un-sweet Ghirardelli) then you should be fine.)

See how powdery it still is?  Takes a while to get all of that sugar to cream with the butter.

Mom is impatient like I am.  We went ahead and added a few drops of 

bourbon to get it creaming faster.  This photo shows the mixture after we had added the chopped pecans.  Notice that it has a texture to it?

Personally, I prefer to chop the pecans VERY finely.  Again, we used the Ninja to do the chopping work.  I just like the texture and taste better when the pecans are not in chunks or even small pieces.  I want them to completely blend into the sugar, butter, and bourbon.  

After adding the chopped pecans, roll them into balls.  The balls are quite sticky, so the gloves really help.  You could also keep your hands coated in powdered sugar.  After rolling them, be sure to chill for 8 hours in refrigerator or chill completely in freezer. 

Don't skip or rush the chilling part.  If the balls aren't chilled enough, they will become 

misshapen or come apart in the warm chocolate, and it will take longer for the 

chocolate to harden once you dip them.

Completed Bourbon Balls, just waiting on the chocolate to harden.

Sugar Cookies - What is Christmas without sugar cookies?  My recipe is one I found when my kids were very small and I had a subscription to Disney's Family Magazine.   My copy is so well-used that if I scan it and paste it here, you wouldn't be able to read it, so I found a link to it on allrecipes.com.

We have severe food allergies in my household, and I knew my daughter would want a cookie or two, so I made a few substitutions to the recipe so she could enjoy them too.  I used butter-flavored Crisco instead of butter (follow the directions on the can and add a couple of TBS of water), and I had to make a substitution for the eggs. Usually I use an egg replacement powder that we special order, but as we were baking at my Mom's today, and since I forgot to pack that ingredient, I had to improvise.  For this I used a mixture of oil, water, baking powder, and a bit of cream of tarter for each egg.  Sounds bad, but it works well, no one can tell the difference, and my daughter can enjoy the cookies.

It makes a great stiff cookie dough.  I divide it in half, wrap it in plastic wrap or 

wax paper, and let it chill before cutting it.

Mom had a fun shaped cookie pan, so we made one batch using it.  So cute!  

After that, I rolled the dough into a log shape, wrapped it in plastic wrap to chill,

and then just sliced off circles of cookie dough.

 We tried a new (to us) icing recipe this year, and we really like it! The link below will take you to the page where I found it.

EASY ICING

• 1 and 1/2 cups (180g) confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon light corn syrup*
• 2 - 2.5 Tablespoons (30-38ml) room temperature water
• pinch salt*

After we took this photo we made green and red batches of icing 

and placed dots in the center of each cookie.  They look so Christmas-y!

Candied Pecans - recipe from Trisha Yearwood

Oreo Truffle Balls - I had never heard of these, but just came across the idea on facebook and wanted to try them. I found a recipe at Allrecipes.com

These are so rich!  If you need a chocolate hit, this will definitely do it for you!

Pine Bark Candy - At this point I had to leave to make the after-school-pick-up run and fill a  +Soap Lily order. While I was gone, Mom made a batch of Pine Bark to add to our goody menu.  No pictures, but the link in blue is to the recipe she used.  

If you like salty and sweet, you will like this.  Some call it Pine Bark candy, some call it Sweet and Saltines, but the basic recipe is the same.

So, at the end of the day, we had prepared a table full of delicious Christmas goodies for the men in our lives to share at work.  The reviews have been quite favorable!

Whew!  What a fun day with Mom! :-)

And my husband's break room is a happy place!

Aphrodisiac By Any Other Name

#blendingfragrances #Aromatherapy #coldprocesssoap

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Both Alison and I are knee deep in shopping, wrapping, mailing, shopping, baking, attending functions, shopping, baking, and well, you get the idea.  We're not making any Christmas excuses; it's THE TIME TO BE MERRY!!! (and, if you do any retail shopping, it has been (Christmas) since mid August (which we hate).  

We aren't making much soap, but if we do we will show you, and we will share our candle-making adventures and maybe even some baking in the next week or two. 

One last side note about shopping... Amazon. We all use it, we all (mostly) like it.  I use it quite often when looking for books, I particularly like the "bait" they use in the "if you like this then you might like these" section.  While perusing the book section the other night looking at soap related books, I was told I might like another selection. In fact, I took the bait and ordered The Aromatherapy Companion by Victoria H. Edwards.  The idea is to learn more about essential oils and look for essential oil mixture/blends that we can use in soap making.  (promise this relates to the soap we made!)

Now back to Thursday... Alison and I were sitting in the soap kitchen checking out the new Aromatherapy book. It's full of facts, recipes, and information about essential oils.  As we were ohhh-ing and ahhh-ing we noticed a blend for diffusers, specifically for an Aphrodisiac, using ylang ylang, patchouli, and neroli. It sounded great, and we had all but the ylang ylang oil, which we quickly substituted with Yuzu.  Now the fun part: how much of each scent do we use? 

Using nothing but the finest paper napkins, we blended the different scents a drop at a time.

One blend was heavy on the patchouli, another was heavy on the yuzu and yet another heavy on Neroli.  We went through about 6 or 7 napkins and numerous variations until we came up with one we loved:  1 part sweet patchouli to 2 parts yuzu and neroli,

Now what do we name it?

We flip-flopped all over the place. It was listed as an aphrodisiac....and we could have gone there, but we didn't.

Our first "name" was Thursday Morning Blend, figuring that would leave room for us to create blends for each day of the week. However Thursday afternoon while we delivered a soap order to one of our customers (and relayed our naming dilemma) the first thing she said was, "You should call it  Afternoon Delight!" 

It was perfect, and so this soap is officially called Afternoon Delight.

Thanks to Cat for the great idea.

We will do the daily blends next year.

We decided on mica colorants from www.rusticescentuals.com. Pictured above is the Aborigine Amber which we hope will be a nice shade of brown.

Also from +Rustic Escentuals is our second color, Cornflower Celebration Mica. 

Both of them have a bit of shimmer.

The three fragrances are described as follows:

from +Natures Garden 

Sweet Patchouli - An earthy blend of Patchouli and Green Grass intertwined with Fresh Lavender and hints of licorice with crisp notes of menthol softened by amber.  

Yuzu - Begins with top notes of mandarin, tangerine, lemon satsuma, and ruby red grapefruit, middle notes of bergamot, and base notes of oakmoss.

and from +Rustic Escentuals 

Neroli - A very true Mediterranean Orange Blossom

Since we are using the CP (cold process) method we mixed the scents into the batter when we reached light trace.  In the above picture we add the Yuzu.

This is the Neroli.

And last the Patchouli. We stick blended them all together.

The oils we used were Olive, Palm, Coconut, and Castor. W

e decided to add silk to the lye water to give the finished bars a silky sheen.

We removed 3 cups of batter and added the Cornflower Celebration Mica

Oh my, it is so beautiful

It looked light, but we hoped it would darken somewhat as the soap cured.

(it did)

Next we removed another 3 cups of batter and add the Aborigine Amber Mica. It was beautiful as well we just forgot to take a picture!

As the above picture shows, the soap was getting THICK; 

it wasn't unworkable yet, but we knew we had to move quickly.

We started pouring white batter, then added the brown and blue, all random, no design.

Here is another picture of the soap batter. 

It was getting thicker and thicker, and we were spooning the batter into the mold.

After 2 or 3 layers we tamped the batter, hoping we would rid the batter of air bubbles.

Next we used the hanger swirl technique.

You can't really see it above, but the hanger is in the batter swirling 

the colors together and - I hoped - creating a pleasing design.

Above you can see the hanger tool just under the surface of the soap batter. 

I am just about to remove the hanger - too much blending leaves no distinct colors.

We piled the remaining batter on the top.

And swirled. This is such fun, and I never know how it will turn out.

We loved the swirl pattern, but I wanted to mound up the top, so.....

bye, bye pretty swirl hello mounded top.

Above is what the soap looked like on Friday afternoon 

just before we cut the bars.

And here is Afternoon Delight. 

We love the colors and the swirl,

 and oh my goodness the smell is amazing!

The soap will cure for 6 weeks and be ready on January 22, 2015!

(have to get used to writing the new year)

A Soap Lily original scent!

Afternoon Delight