Cold process soap making involves mixing oils with a lye and water solution. The resulting chemical reaction, called saponification, creates soap.  There is no lye left in the soap when the saponification is complete.

Lye is a caustic substance – ie it can burn you – so there are some safety rules you should follow.

Before you start making soap, watch this video from about.com on lye solution safety.

About.com Candle & Soap Making is an excellent resource for beginner soap makers.

Also check out their step-by-step photo tutorial on making cold process soap and the basic soap making video.

Another good resource is Teach Soap and the Teach Soap forum, created by the owner of Bramble Berry Soapmaking Supplies, Anne-Marie Faiola.  Anne-Marie’s blog, The Soap Queen, is loaded with lots of fun tutorials and other information for the soap maker.

Anne-Marie also has a YouTube channel, called Soap Queen TV.  Coming in April is a series of Soap Queen TV episodes on cold process soap making basics.

A wonderful book for beginning soapers is The Everything Soapmaking Book, by Alicia Grosso.  That is what I used when I started cold process soap making and it is great.

You can use many different things as a mold to make cold process soap.  I prefer a wooden mold, but when I first started out, I didn’t want to invest that much money, so I used a silicone bread pan.  They make great soap molds, but they are floppy, so if you use one, make sure you support it.  I use a shoebox.

A good starter recipe that does not require any fancy oils is a good place to start.  You can find all of the ingredients at the grocery store (except maybe the lye, but you can usually find that at the hardware store in the plumbing section – make sure it is 100% lye!).  Hold off on buying a bunch of fancy supplies until you decide that you like soap making.

Below is the first recipe I ever made, as recorded in my soap making notebook.  It uses olive, coconut and castor oils.  You can find castor oil in the pharmacy section of your supermarket, with the laxatives.  The castor oil gives the soap a very creamy feeling.  I personally don’t like it very much, so I don’t normally use castor oil anymore, but a lot of people like it.

Olive, Coconut, and Castor Oil Soap, 3-Pound Loaf

6.8 oz lye
16.2 oz water

31.5 oz olive oil
16 oz coconut oil
1.5 oz castor oil

All measurements are in weight ounces.

A few more tips:

• Always run your recipe through a lye calculator to make sure you use the correct amount of lye.  I have found mistakes in the recipes in soap making books!
• Make sure you have enough time to devote to making your soap, without any distractions.
• Have all of your materials ready ahead of time, before you mix anything.
• Be safe!
• Raw soap will hurt like the dickens if you get it on a paper cut!!
• Record everything you do in a notebook, for future reference and to see how far you’ve come.
• Have fun!

I used chunky peanut butter to get those little peanutty bits.

I use what I call the 1-1-1-1 recipe (don’t say the dashes).  I call it that because it makes the recipe easy to remember.

1 cup natural peanut butter (chunky or smooth)

1 cup sugar (I use half white and half dark brown)

1 egg

1 teaspoon baking soda

Cream peanut butter and sugar in mixer (1 – 2 minutes).  Add egg and baking powder, mix for 2 minutes more.  Shape into balls.  Place on cookie sheet and flatten slightly with a fork.  Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes, or until lightly browned.  Cool on cookie sheet for a few minutes, so they don’t fall apart when you pick them up.  (Time based on 1 dozen cookies.  Less time, if you make them smaller.)

Try not to eat them all!

The embellishments were made using “Candy and Cupcake” stickers and microbeads from Martha Stewart Crafts, available online or at Michaels.

Directions

1. Drain cherries thoroughly on paper towels for several hours. Line a baking sheet with waxed paper; set baking sheet aside.

2. In a small mixing bowl combine butter and corn syrup. Stir in powdered sugar; knead mixture until smooth (chill if mixture is too soft to handle).

Shape about 1/2 teaspoon powdered sugar mixture around each cherry.

Place coated cherries, stem sides up, on the prepared baking sheet; chill about 1 hour or until firm (do not chill too long or sugar mixture will begin to dissolve).

3. Melt candy coating. Line a baking sheet with waxed paper. Holding cherries by stems, dip one at a time into coating; if necessary, spoon coating over cherries to coat. (Be sure to completely seal cherries in coating to prevent juice from leaking.) Let excess coating drip off. Place cherries, stem sides up, on prepared baking sheet.

4. Chill until coating is firm. Store in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator. Let candies ripen in refrigerator for 1 to 2 weeks before serving. (Ripening allows powdered sugar mixture around cherries to soften and liquefy.) Makes 20 pieces.

I used cherries without stems and lifted them out of the chocolate with a fork.

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies (they’re heart-shaped!)

Rice Krispie and Coco Pops Treats (dressed up for Valentine’s Day)

Valentine’s Day Treats Recipes by Martha

Chocolate Lip Balm with Cocoa Powder

And don’t forget to check out my Valentine’s Day ideas from last year – tag: Valentine’s Day

To make these yumtastic goodies, you will need 2 boxes of Jello (I used cherry), a bag of jelly hearts, a can of whipped cream, silicone cupcake liners or foil cupcake papers, and optional cake sparkles to give it, well, sparkle!

Make the Jello according to the directions for Jigglers.  Jigglers call for 4 boxes.  I used 2 and halved the amount of water.

Pour the jello into the cupcake liners.  If you use foil ones, leave the paper layer in.  I tried it with the paper and without.  It is much easier to remove the jello from the paper.  I think it would be awesome to use the silicone cupcake liners, but I use mine for soap and I don’t have any that I use for food.

The way I filled mine yielded 7 Jello cupcakes.

Melt and pour soapers, resist the urge to spray with alcohol to remove the surface bubbles!

Refrigerate until fully set.  It took one hour for mine.

You can leave the jello in the papers (as pictured above) or take them out (pictured below), before decorating.  It’s up to you.  If you want to remove the paper, first peel away the foil.  Then, go around the top gently rubbing the jello away from the paper.  Once you loosen the top all the way around, you can just peel off the paper and it should come off fine.

Top with whipped cream and cake sparkles, if desired.  Place a jelly heart on top.  Wait until just before serving to top, or the whipped cream will melt!  If you want them to last longer, try Cool Whip, which holds its form better.

If you push a toothpick into the jelly heart, then push the other end into the jello, the heart will stand up better.

Jello and soap cupcake BFFs.

I have always wanted to try needle felting.  It looks fun and rather simple to do this beginner project.  I might have to try it.

I really wanted to do tons of awesome Valentine’s Day posts and here I am, only a week before the big day, just now kicking it off.

And what better way to kick off a week of Valentine’s Day posts than with Melt and Pour Soap Cupcakes all dressed up for V day?

I left the “frosting” white and, even though the Jewelry Box colorants are not non-bleeding, it has been a week and there has been no bleed whatsoever.  If you are worried about bleeding, make the frosting pink.

I colored clear soap with the red colorant and soap-safe glitter, and added fragrance.  I poured a thin layer (~1/4 inch) into a silicone pan.  (I only wanted a couple of hearts, so I used a muffin pan, but if you want to make a bunch, use a brownie pan.)  I poured the rest of the soap into the silicone cupcake liners.  When the thin layer of soap was set, I popped it out and used a small metal heart cookie cutter to cut out the hearts.

When the cupcake was set, I made the frosting using white melt and pour soap, with added fragrance.  I stirred it with a fork until it was thick and poured/scooped it onto the cupcake, which was sprayed with alcohol to make it stick better.  Then, I sprayed the top with more alcohol and sprinkled on more glitter!

While the frosting was still freshly poured, I popped in the heart.

Give one to someone you love.  Just don’t let anyone eat it!

4 green or red bell peppers
1 can (15 oz) black beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
3/4 cup salsa
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/3 cup uncooked converted long grain rice
1 & 1/4 teaspoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

Mix everything (except the peppers) together.  Cut tops off peppers and clean out seeds.  Fill peppers with filling mixture.  Place in 5 – 6 quart slow-cooker, sprayed with cooking spray.  Cover and cook on low 3-4 hours, until filling is heated and peppers are soft.  Enjoy your super easy, super yummy dinner!  Add a dollop of sour cream for extra awesome.

Unlike other silicone cupcake cups, Sili-cups gold their shape without needing a muffin tin and the edges are crisp little zig-zags.  They are, in a word, awesome.

I decided to play with my Soapylove Jewelry Box colorants and make some soap cupcakes.

I melted clear soap and mixed in fragrance, color, and the sparkle dust soap-safe glitter that comes with the color set, then poured the soap into the cups.

I played around with filling the cups to different levels.

While the soap hardened, I melted white soap and added the same color and fragrance.  These colorants are not non-bleeding, so I used the same color for the cupcake and frosting.

The “frosting” needs to be stirred and stirred until it cools and thickens enough to hold shape when it is poured on top of the cupcake base.  Then, you only have a few second before it gets too hard to pour, so be prepared to work quickly.

Spritz the cupcake with alcohol just before putting on the frosting.  Then, pour the soap frosting on, using a spoon to shape it.  If it floops of the edge of the cupcake when you pour it, just smoosh it back on; it gives it a more realistic frosting appearance.

Spritz again with alcohol and top with a sprinkle of the sparkle dust.

I loved them so much, I made lots of different colors!