Gingerbread Men

Finished Bars

My soap for the little men

Filling the mold

I found a silicone gingerbread man pan on clearance this summer and my first thought was that it would make an awesome Christmas time soap.  So I started by making a small batch of soap a few weeks ago.  I poured the batter into the mold and tried to get it to gel on its own.  It didn't work because the size of the figures was so small, so I put the entire pan in the oven for 30 minutes at 170*.  This did the trick.  After putting the mold in the freezer for about an hour before un-molding.  The freezing helped make them firm enough to pop out of the mold without breaking.

Pouring the soap

I love all of the little gingerbread men

As you can see from the picture here the gingerbread men started out fairly pale.  After a couple of days the little figures darkened up quite a bit as you can see.  I did trim the back surface to make it look better.  These were set aside while I made the recipe for the base soap.

After a couple weeks of curing

My soap mix before coloring

I decided to use the red clay that I had on hand for the red swirl and I used some titanium dioxide to whiten the rest of the batch.  After measuring and mixing the oils and mixing the lye water, I let the lye water cool.  I had used about 2/3 of the water amount in ice which speed up the cool down.   I also didn't heat the oils  a whole lot.  As you can see it blended up nicely.  After getting trace, I split the batch in two parts.  I added about 2 teaspoons of  titanium dioxide to one half and about 1 teaspoon of the red clay to the other half.   I used an in the pot swirl for this batch.

samples in the mold

After I got the mold filled to my satisfaction I started working on my sample mold.  I added my cut pieces of the gingerbread man soap to the remaining soap.  I very gently pushed the pieces into the batter being careful not to mix any more than absolutely necessary.  I didn't want to mix my swirl until it was not a swirl any more.

In the mold

After I gave the soap some time to thicken up I pressed the gingerbread men down into the soap mixture.   I placed everything in two rows so that I would not have any trouble cutting the slices into two bars each.  I also had to leave a little space in between each embed so that I could slice the log.

My gelling set-up

After getting everything molded the soap didn't look like it was going to gel on it's own.  I have a rice pack that can be heated in the microwave.  I heated it for 2 minutes before laying it out on top of my towel and placing all of my molds on top of it.  Then I placed a rubbermaid container over the top of the whole thing.  Then I wrapped the whole thing in a large bath towel.  I did reheat the rice pack once because it didn't look like gel was complete.

I left the soap overnight before unwrapping.  After I unwrapped the soap I let it sit for another couple of hours before un-molding it.  After I un-molded the soap I let it sit and the sides dry for about an hour.  

I started by cutting the loaf length wise.  This left me with two logs.  I scrapped the middle of the two logs where I had cut it to clean up the edges.  I also sliced a thin layer off of the outside sides.  After getting everything neatened up I started slicing the logs with a paring knife.       

My house smells like a bakery right now.  I also now have a rack full of soap curing.  It is a very satisfying feeling. 

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http://back2basichealth.blogspot.com
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