This month is mini dessert month! Four different desserts, using a food item as an ingredient and it has to be a small version of a full size dessert.
For this I figured I'd branch out in all directions! Different food types to match the dessert! Different soaping techniques! I had grand visions of making incredibly cute looking ice cream sundaes in shot glasses! A swiss roll with chocolate and whipped cream (it involved a rolling pin and a pastry filler) Lots of other ideas with exclamation marks!
So I started out strong thinking I have a silicon cup cake mould but can't make cup cakes so what could minature down into a cup cake? I know, pies! So I thought I'd make a banana cream pie (which isn't really a thing in NZ so apologies if what I made bears no resemblance to the actual dessert) and an apple pie. For the food aspect I always make goat milk soap so including milk was hardly a challenge. Instead I made a soap batter, split it in three and added 15 grams of mushed banana to one and 15 grams of apple juice (which I made from the wrinkly apples you find in the bottom of the fruit bowl). The other third was for the pie bases and I added a tablespoon of ground rolled oats to make it look like a crust.
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| Apple juice, mushed banana and essential oils ready for the soap batter |
For the apple pie I thought if I poured the base and then poured the apple soap directly on top some of the base soap would go up the sides and form a crust. It sort of worked. For the banana cream pie I poured a base layer and was going to layer the banana on top but the banana soap thickened up a bit quickly so it didn't layer evenly. Then back to the apple pie and I piped the lattice top on it. They turned out quite well and I used a little bit of clove and cassia essential oil to make it smell like the actual pie. I was quite impressed with the colour of the apple soap, it is kind of pink. The banana soap started off yellow with little banana flecks in it but I added a bit of vanilla to make it smell so it went brown. Left over batter went into large ice cube trays for the mini cakes.
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| Banana pie of the left, apple pie on the right. I tried to 'weave' the lattice top on one and quickly gave up! |
Next up was whipped soap for the cream pie topping, cake layers and my not actually eventuating ice cream sundae. I used the tutorial off nizzymoulds.com. It breezily mentions that whipped soap can seize and 'becomes impossible to pipe'. Mwah ha ha so guess what happens? I had lovely whipped lard/tallow/coconut/cocoa butter and slowly added my lye milk and got some piped and then it just froze. I've never made this before so I'm not sure what happened. I don't have any pictures of the whipped soap process but I'm wondering if the fact I nearly burnt out my super cheap electric beaters might have been something to do with it. They still work but starting making weird noises and smelling like fried electrics! So if the challenge was to create soap that looks like mashed potatoes I would win. Or it could be the fact I was using goat milk? I got the banana pies done, and two mini cakes. I realised the ice cream sundae wasn't going to happen, made some mashed potato balls, kind of iced another ice cube of soap (rustic chic mini wedding cake?) and called it a day.
I'm not sure if two identical design yet different execution cakes would count as two different desserts so I figured I needed to pretty up my "rustic mini wedding cake". I managed to find some melt and pour soap (coloured purple) left over from some other soapy project. I used the fondant soap recipe but I don't have a microwave so had to melt it over a water bath, then it wouldn't melt properly and I got impatient and just added the cornflour and glycerin, mixed it all up and coloured it pink. With purple bits of unmelted soap. But I cut out some little flowers and blinged up the cake.
So in conclusion? I'm not sure dessert soaps will be something I will pursue long term, I love other people's dessert soap but I don't think I've got the patience! I'm keen to master whipped soap though, it has some cool possibilities. And I'm excited about banana and apple, I can't wait to try these soaps and see what they are like. Also a huge tip: Always make soap while your significant other is around! I couldn't get the lid off my bucket of lye and my husband was at soccer, I had to wait for him to get back to open it for me.
Here are the final soaps:
I can't wait to see what everyone else has done!
