adorable pastry soaps

I first saw these adorable soaps at jabon-soap blog. They are cute little coconut milk based soaps, set into pastry paper and topped with calendula flowers, rose petals and coffee beans.

And so, I'm sharing my, albeit, not perfect, attempt. :)

I'm posting the recipe found on Nuria's blog
800 gr Olive Oil
150 gr Shea butter
50 gr Castor Oil
225 gr Coconut Milk
122 gr lye
Vitamin E

I doubled the amounts, for a double batch.

First I chilled my coconut milk in the freezer until it was almost frozen, but still in the slushee phase. I slowly added my lye.

Measured out my oils- added my lye mixture and stirred into the oils....until incorporated.

I put out 4 Rubbermaid bowls, to pour off a bit of raw soap into each container, to scent.

I decided to scent with lavender EO, rose absolute, vanilla absolute and a lovely EO blend that I make called zen blend.



I then chose my botanicals or toppings for the soap cakes.....I went with rose petals, coffee beans, calendula flowers and lavender.

Ok, first thing I realized is, you want to put these in the paper, AFTER the soap has begun to set up a little. Where it starts to thicken and you can scoop it like thick applesauce....if not, you end up with too runny, raw soap, that wants to leak out of the papers. You can see how loose the soap cakes are with the lavender on top...

As I plugged along, I realized that thicker soap was important, and thankfully, soap thickens on it's own- so this problem took care of itself and I was able to spoon out portions of soap and top with the botanicals.



In the end, they started to look more like what I had seen, although Nuria's soaps are far more beautiful!



And of course, I wouldn't be me if I didn't flub something......I happened to grab the vanilla absolute and add it to the soap that I had already dropped a few drops of red colorant into..which was supposed to be the rose....but turned out to be a vanilla rose. :) These things happen. A lot....... To me. ;)

Also, I asked Nuria if the soap would stick to the paper, assuming it would. She said they would stick, but that she uses two papers, when she fills the soaps. After they set, the next day or so, she easily peels off the paper that has stuck to the soap and replaces it with a new paper. Easy peasy.

Try these adorable little soaps yourself. Wouldn't they be fabulous on a cake pedestal? I'll take more pictures tomorrow after these set.

peace~love~and sharing the knowledge,